-SPIRITUAL  RETURN  OF  CHRIST 
WITHIN  T^HE  CHURCH 

RiGHARD  DE  BARY 


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PRINCETON  •  NEW  JERSEY 
PRESENTED  BY 

The  Estate  of   the 
Rev.    John  B.   Wiedin^rer 

BV    5082    .D4    1907 
De   Bary,    Richard. 
The   spiritual   return  of 
Christ  within   the   church 

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THE  SPIRITUAL  RETURN  OF  CHRIST 
WITHIN  THE  CHURCH 


THE  SPIRITUAL  ^^ETURN  .^ 
OF  CHRIST  WITHIN  THE 
CHURCH 

PAPERS    ON    CHEISTIAN    THEISM 


BY    RICHARD    DE    BARY 

CHAPLAIN    TO   THE    EARL   OF    SHAFTESBURY 


"  A  crown  of  righteousness  .   .    .  unto 
all  them  also  who  love  His  appearing." 
2  Timothy  iv.   8. 


NEW    YORK 
K    P.    BUTTON    AND    COMPANY 

1907 


Printed  in  Great  Britain 


PUBLISHER'S  NOTE 

The  book  is  an  essay,  or  rather  an  adventure,  in 
Christian  Mysticism  bearing  marks  of  close  kinship 
with  the  Theologia  Germanica,  but  distinguished 
from  it,  and  still  more  from  the  writings  of  the 
Spanish  Mystics,  St  John  of  the  Cross  and  St 
Theresa,  by  the  scientific  basis  of  its  metaphysics. 
It  is,  indeed,  a  translation  of  the  world-process,  as 
revealed  by  modern  science,  into  the  terms  of  a 
theistic  metaphysic.  The  laws  of  this  process  are, 
for  the  author,  but  the  modes  of  energy  of  the 
Eternal  Reason ;  the  sole  purpose  of  that  energy  is 
redemptive ;  and  Redemption  means  the  guidance  of 
the  whole  movement  of  material  life,  by  the  Spirit  or 
Eternal  Reason  inherent  in  it,  back  to  the  ultimate 
Rest  in  Unity  which  is  the  natural  mode  of  the 
Spiritual. 

The  book,  then,  is  an  attempt,  very  rare  in  modern 
theology,  to  establish  the  vital  connection  of  human 
experience  and  the  world-process  as  both  of  them 
expressions  of  the  Word  or  Eternal  Reason  of  God. 
Though  the  appeal  is  made  to  experience  and  history, 
yet  Realism  is  so  extended  into  conceptions  of  the 
Spirit  World  as  to  meet  the  Hegelian  identification 
of  thought  and  things.  But  the  treatment  is  not 
philosophical,  but  mystical  and  religious. 


PREFACE 

Christian  Doctors  teach  that  Heaven  is  the  fulfil- 
ment of  each  man's  Supreme  Desire.  As  the  best 
minds  of  the  Age  are  wont  to  place  their  Supreme 
Desire  in  the  life  of  Communion  with  Nature  and 
Mankind,  with  the  sanction  of  the  Doctors,  it  may 
be  prophesied  that  in  the  true  Paradise,  Communion 
with  Nature  and  Mankind  will  stand  together  with 
the  secured  possession  of  God. 

Communion  with  Nature  must  in  a  supreme  sense 
include  the  assured  results  from  all  that  great  Labour 
of  the  adjustment  of  Man  to  his  Cosmic  environment, 
which  it  has  been  the  task  of  the  present  Scientific 
and  Industrial  Age  to  fulfil. 

If  this  be  true,  then  the  World-Stream  itself,  with 
the  sum  of  all  its  Sciences,  Arts,  Civilisations,  and 
Cultures,  may  be  thought  of  as  eddying  towards 
some  future  commingling  with  the  Rivers  of  Paradise. 

Or  it  may  be  said  that  the  Blessed  Sight  of  the 
World-Ransom  is  only  withheld  from  longing  eyes 
on   account  of  the  greatness  of  the  Ransom's  con- 


viii  PREFACE 

taining  Heart.  The  Saints  themselves  have  been 
accused  of  narrowness.  Christian  Communions  only 
too  willingly  delimit  themselves,  and  are  wont  to 
excommunicate  one  another.  But  may  not  all  these 
seif-belittlements  of  men  be  but  part  of  their  own 
self-education  unto  seeing  and  acknowledging  the 
greatness  of  the  all-containing  Heart  of  God  ? 

If  this  be  the  case,  there  is  a  function  to  be  exer- 
cised here  by  the  Christian  Seer.  From  Redemption, 
recognised  by  Faith,  the  Christian  Prophet  must 
bear  witness  to  the  truth  that  the  World-Ransom  is 
fulfilling  itself  unto  Sight  and  Manifestation.  It  is 
his  duty  to  testify  to  the  reality  of  the  inclusion  of 
the  World-Process  within  Redemption. 

The  Christian  Seer  must,  then,  be  an  Enthusiast  for 
that  Blessed  Vision  of  World-Atonement  amid  all 
Social,  Industrial,  and  Religious  Conflicts,  which 
would  prove  itself  to  be  agreeable  to  God's  all- 
containing  Heart.  He  it  is  who  is  the  "  Theist,"  the 
"  God-Enthusiast,"  of  whom  mention  is  made  in 
pages  that  follow.  The  word  "  Theism,"  too,  is  used 
throughout  for  this  diviner  view  of  the  World-Process, 
in  which  naturalness  is  taken  as  evidence  for  divine- 
ness  ;  in  which  every  true  Artist  is  seen  culling  the 
flowers  of  Paradise,  because  he  sees  Creation  merely 
without  disguise.  And  every  true  Poet  sings  of  God 
only ;  because  beauty  of  Life  is  of  the  one  rightful 
evidence  of  God  ;  and  every  true  Scientist  is  a  Moses 
of  the  Eternal  Sinai  of  Atoms  of  Stars.     The  very 


PREFACE  ix 

scepticism  of  the  Modern  World  is  as  its  penitential 
retreat  into  the  wilderness  from  before  God's  face. 
Nature-Love  and  Nature- Worship  are  in  a  sense  the 
baptismal  tears  which  will  make  hearts  clean  for  a 
Return  to  Him. 

The  Christian  Seer  is  aided  in  this  reconciling 
function  by  the  irresistible  trend  of  all  Scientific 
Conceptions  towards  "  Monism,"  the  doctrine  of  the 
living  and  rhythmic  intercommunication  of  all  things 
in  the  Universe.  Monism  gives  us  the  right  to 
measure  the  All  by  each  single  Unit  out  of  which  the 
All  is  synthesised.  The  "electron"  deciphers  the 
thunderstorm  ;  the  multiple  electron,  called  the  atom, 
deciphers  Stellar  Systems.  In  like  manner  may  the 
Christian  Theist  decipher  the  purpose  of  the  Universe 
by  the  Unit  of  the  fact  of  Christ.  Because  each  Unit 
is  in  the  All,  therefore  this  One  is  in  the  All ;  there- 
fore the  Cosmos  itself  is  a  Christly  Universe,  and  a 
Christ  is  latent  in  every  particle  of  its  being. 

On  the  bounds,  thus,  of  all  scientific  vistas  a  Divine 
Majesty  hastens  again  to  greet  the  sight  of  mortals. 
Yet  no  special  authorising  is  now  required  to 
announce  His  "Spiritual  Return"  to  men.  For,  so 
interpreted,  does  not  all  Nature  foretell  His  Paradise  ? 
and  may  not  every  Christian  who  converses  with  you 
be  in  like  manner  filled  with  the  ghostly  Pentecostal 
Speech  ? 


CONTENTS 

PART  I 

Theism,  the  Affirmative  View  of  God  and  Man 

PAGE 

1.  Theism    is    the   Sovereign  Affirmative    Manner  of 

viewing  Life  ...  ...  3 

2.  The  Theist  is  the  Universal  Enthusiast  for  God        .  4 

3.  Theism  is  the  Supreme  Consecration  of  our  under- 

standing of  the  Material  Universe  ...  6 

4.  Man's  Moment  of  Failure  is  God's  Moment  of  Re- 

demption      ......  7 

5.  The  Theist  rejoices  in  Science  as  the  beginning  of 

the  Vision  of  God     ....  .8 

6.  Theism   is  the   Supreme  Reasonableness  about  all 

things  on  Earth  and  in  Heaven       ...  9 

7.  By  believing  in  God,  the  whole  Universe  comes  into, 

and  dwells  within  our  Soul ;  and  we  experience  in 
ourselves  all  History  till  the  end  of  Time    .  .         11 

8.  Religion  is  necessarily,  absolutely  and  eternally,  con- 

ditioned by  Morals ;  but  it  is  in  itself  the  posses- 
sion of  the  Kingdom  of  God  around  us,  not  merely 
the  way  thither  .  .  .  .  .12 

9.  The  Kingdom  of  God  is  the  Christ-like,  and  hence 

God-like,  control  and  disposition  of  the  Universe .        1 5 


Xll 


CONTENTS 


10.  Christian   Moral   Theology   is   the  ordering  of  the      p^"^* 

Universe  according  to  the  Precepts  of  Christ ;  and 
is  based  upon  Man's  Duty  of  making  the  Earth 
minister  to  the  Fatherliness  of  God  .  .         17 

11.  Three  Social  Witnessings  of  God  : — 

(i)  Just  and  Fatherly  Economics  .  .        19 

(2)  Social  Ethics  of  Brotherliness  .  .        20 

(3)  Holiness    of    Exclusive     Consecration    to 

Christliness,  or  Love  of  the  Earth  .  .        21 


PART   II 


The  Cosmic  Vision  of  Christ 


1.  The  Spiritual  Coming  is  no  great  wonder  to  those 

who  know  both  Christ's  sympathy  with  God's 
Creation,  and  hence  also  the  Creation's  responding 
sympathy  with  Him  .  .  .  .25 

2.  We  too,  by  union  in  sympathy  with  the  Universe, 

are  prepared  to  receive  the  World's  Christ  .         26 

3.  The  General  Judgment  will  carry  out  Christ's  Will, 

because  Christ,  having  first  obeyed  the  Will  of  All, 

is  thus  empowered  to  interpret  the  Whole  of  Things         27 

4.  Theism,  summed  up  in  brief,  is  the  Rational  Theory 

that  Goodness  is  the  one  ever-enduring  created 
Substantiality  .  .  .  .  .28 

5.  The  Theist  delights  more  in  all  Science,  Study,  and 

Investigation  than  anyone  who  ever  doubted  God        29 

6.  The  intimate  revealings  of  Music  to  the  heart  and 

soul  prove  that  the  World  is  spiritual,  and  that  it 

is  constructed  so  as  to  respond  to  personahty        .        30 


COxNTENTS  xiii 

7.  The  evidence  for  the  "  Electrical  Theory  "  of  the  con-      i'aok 

stitution  of  matter  suggests  how  Spirit  can  control 
the  Material  Universe  as  a  mighty  instrument  of 
Spiritual  Power         .....        33 

8.  Our  weak  and  ghostly  surmisings  of  the  Good  grow 

in  time  into  the  solid  and  real  City  of  God  .        34 

9.  Monism  is  the  doctrine  that  in  any  particle  of  the 

universe  is  the  potential  Everything  in  the 
universe.  The  Theist  is  a  Monist  who  says  that 
human  personality  is  an  essential  and  immortal 
reality,  and  that  if  Christ  was  in  the  world,  the 
world  was,  and  is,  and  will  be,  with  Christ  .        36 

10.  We  can  gather  up  a  kind  of  essential  and  true  Theo- 

logy by  that  inner  knowledge  of  the  soul  and  life 
called  Psychology     .....        39 

11.  The  World  of  Nature   is  filled   with  anticipations, 

expectations,  and  forebodings  of  the  World  of 
Grace  ......        42 

12.  Theism  sees  in  Christ  the  native  or  pre-ordained 

centre  of  Rest  in  the  Sacred  Harmony  of  His 
Being  ......        43 

13.  When  we  begin  to  comprehend  the  place  of  Christ  in 

the  world,  we  find  ourselves  very  close  in  spirit  to 

the  Apostles  who  saw  and  conversed  with  Jesus    .        44 

14.  The  Agony  in  the  Garden  was  the  Thought-Ransom 

of  the  World ......        45 

15.  The  Science  of  Christ  is  not  contrary  to  the  Science 

of  the  Universe ;  for  a  certain  simplification  in 
existing  Scientific  Conceptions  would  bring  us 
direct  to  Christ  .....        47 

16.  All  which  conforms  to  the  Spirit  and  Likeness  of 

Christ  is  of  the  New  Creation  .  ,  .48 

b  2 


xiv  CONTENTS 

17.  Our  Soul's  memories  of  the  Beloved  Dead  are  real      ^^^^ 

Courts  and  Shrines  of  the  presence  of  the  Dead, 
and  by  the  Voice  of  the  Son  of  God  the  Dead 
will  arise  again,  not  only  in  Him,  but  also  in  their 
abiding-places  in  us  .  .  .  .  .49 

18.  Christ's  final  appearance  is  in  reality  predetermined 

by  His  power  of  persistence  in  Humanity,  through 
which  great  Reverberance  He  will  outlive  His 
enemies  and  appear  again    .  .  .  .51 

19.  Heaven  is  closely,  and  with  perfect  accuracy,  por- 

trayed in  the  inner  pictures  we  all  possess  of  bliss, 
though  it  seems  beyond  all  our  imaginings  that 
these  should  ever  be  realised  .  .  .52 

20.  Theism  teaches  that,  if  there  be  a  Communion  of 

Saints,  then  the  Beloved  Dead  will  come  to  us 
with  as  complete  an  invisible  reality  as  the  reality 
of  our  own  souls        .  •  .  .  •         53 


PART   HI 

The  Church  ;  or,  the  Keeping  of  the  King's 
Likeness  and  Impression 

1.  The  Church  is  a  power  which  integrates  and  immor- 

talises man    ......        59 

2.  The  Church  is  the  Angel  or  Messenger  of  the  Son 

of  God  .  .  .  .  .  .60 

3.  The  Church  selects  its  Apostles  in   Christ's   name 

from  men  who  faithfully  represent  their  age  .         62 

4.  Church  History  is  a  gradual  ordering  of  the  true  and 

living  Impression  of  Christ  in  the  Church,  until 
Christ  is  as  plainly  manifested  as  He  once  was  to 
His  Apostles ......        63 


CONTENTS  XV 

5    Unless  Divine  Providence  has  wholly  ceased  to  be,      f^*^* 
the  experience  and    activities   of   the    Anglican 
Church  are  necessarily  a  token  of  its  segregation 
by  the    Holy  Ghost  for  the  furtherance  of  the 
hidden  divine  Design  of  Reunion    .  .  .64 

6.  To  conquer  all,  the  Christian  Saint  must,  in  a  sense, 

first  himself  be  subdued  by  all  ...        66 

7.  The  Churches,  by  the  light  of  Nature,  seem  to  see 

clearly  why  they  should  disagree  ;  but  by  the  light 
of  Grace  the  apparent  reasons  for  division  will 
seem  the  necessary  reasons  why  they  should  all 
combine  together  again        .  .  .  .68 

8.  Conversions  wrought  by  the  Christ-like  life  of  Chris- 

tians are  a  precious  gathering  together  of  mankind 
in  Christ ;  but  all  so-called  Conversions  from 
one  Communion  to  another,  wrought  through 
Proselytism,  are  a  mere  scattering  or  dissipation 
of  the  life  of  Christianity      .  .  .  .70 

9.  Church  History  is  a  great  ordering  of  the  Healing  of 

that  Blindness  of  Vision  which  prevents  Mankind 
from  seeing  Christ  in  the  Holy  Ghost         .  .        71 

10.  The  Church  is  a  great  and  perpetual  Covenant  of 

Loyalty  .  .  .  .  .  .75 

11.  Christ  welcomed  those  who  were  Sinners  by  excess 

of  Sociability  as  persons  who  has  misguidedly 
sought  His  Kingdom  .  .  .  .76 

12.  The  intense  realism  in  which  the  Gospel  speaks  of 

the  Kingdom  of  Heaven       .  .  .  ,79 

13.  The  Church  is  a  great  institutional  and  structural 

acceptance  by  mankind  of  the  gift  and  reality  of 

the  Incarnation  of  Christ     .  .  .  .81 

14.  The  Bible  is  deeply  inlaid  with  an  inspired  Plan  of 

the  Reunion  of  all  the  Spiritual  Tribes  of  Israel 

in  a  "  City,"  that  is,  an  institutional  realisation      .        82 


xvi  CONTENTS 

15.  The  Story  of  the  finding  of  Christ  in  Prophecy  is  in      page 

a  certain   sense  repeated   in  the  history  of  our 
comprehending  Him  .  .  .  .        S^ 

16.  Students  of  Christ's  Humanity  are  the  reconcilers  of 

the  Church  of  Christ  .  .  .  ,84 

17.  Church  Dogma  preserves  our  contact  with  the  New 

Creation         ......        85 


PART   IV 
The  Genius  of  the  "To  Be"  and  the  Book  of  Life 

1.  The  Bible  is  truly  inspired,  because  it  was  conceived 

of  and  written  down  in  the  power  of  that  Genius 

of  Reality  which  is  the  Holy  Ghost  .  .        95 

2.  The  Bible  agrees  with  the  very  scheme  of  numbers 

in  which  men  and  history  are  made ;  and  therefore 
narrates  and  foretells  all  essential  history  ,  .        97 

3.  The  Bible  is  the  expression  of  the  whole  Substance 

of  things  ;  therefore  it  agrees  with  the  heart  of  all 
Science  ......        98 

4.  The  Bible  is  not  an  Incarnation  of  God  in  the  Flesh, 

but  the  Birth  of  the  entire  Thought  of  God  in  the 
letters  and  scriptures  and  individual  thoughts  of 
mankind        ......       100 

5.  All   revealed  Dogmas  are    divine    Affirmatives    to 

questions  asked  by  the  innermost  nature  and 
framework  of  humanity        ....       103 

6.  The  Future  is  a  living  reality  in  so  far  as  all  the 

Creation  prefigures  itself,  and  the  way  of  life,  by  a 
kind  of  Clairvoyance  of  its  own  deeds  and  char- 
acter and  tendencies.  This  indwelling  of  the 
Future  in  the  Now  is  a  simile  of  what  the  Holy 
Ghost  is  for  God  and  Man  .  .  .  .105 


CONTENTS  xvii 

7.  The  Holy  Ghost  brings  the  assured  presentiment  of     page 

God's  Conquest  over  Misery,  Injustice,  Sin  and 
Death,  into  the  midst  of  all  the  imperfect  strivings 
of  men  .  .  .  .  .  .       106 

8.  The  Holy  Spirit,  abiding  of  Himself  in  what  to  us 

is  the  Future,  when  He  descends  from  thence  to  us 
conforms  our  hearts  to  our  eternal  destinies  .       1 10 

9.  The    Holy   Ghost    solves   the  entire   Problem  and 

Difficulty  of  the  World  which  besets  the  Earth's 
path,  and  having  seen  through  to  the  End,  is 
empowered  to  lead  men  to  all  Truth,  and  conquer 
the  barriers  on  the  Way  of  Life       .  .  .110 

10.  The  new  Christly  fullness  of  character  can  only  come 

to  each  one  through  his  sympathies  with  the  whole 
of  Nature  and  his  brotherly  compassion  with  every 
single  life       .  .  .  .  .  .112 

11.  The  true  Christ  Lover  gains  perfect  individual  In- 

spiration through  perfect  Submission  to  God's 
Laws  and  Human  Institutions         .  .  .114 

12.  In  the  reign  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  men  will  sum  up  all 

the  good  things  of  the  Past  and  be  clothed  anew 

with  the  Mind  of  Christ        .  .  .  .116 

13.  The  Kingdom  of  the  Holy  Ghost  is  only  delayed, 

awaiting  on  our  perfect  obedience  to  God  and  His 
Church  .  .  .  .  .  .119 

14.  We  can  only  increase  our  lives  by  sacrificing  them, 

for  by  Sacrifice  we  leave  room  within  us  for  the 
indwelling  of  the  Spirit  of  Christ     .  .  .120 


xviii  CONTENTS 

PART  V 
Christ,  the  Mystical  Self  of  Men 

PAGE 

1.  The  Saints  are  the  Mystical  Sons  of  God       .  .       125 

2.  In   St  John's  Apocalypse  the  "Parousia,"  or  Last 

Judgment,  was  rehearsed,  and  in  a  sense  also 
individually  experienced  by  the  Apostle  .  .127 

3.  Saints  who  love  Nature  are  the  mediums  through 

which  Christ  returns  spiritually  within  Nature       .       130 

4.  Church  History  is  World-Education  in  the  compre- 

hension of  Christ       .  .  .  .  -131 

5.  Conversion  is  not  the  Christ-life  itself;  but  it  is  an 

inner  absolution  which  frees  men  and  suffers  them 

to  begin  to  take  up  their  Cross  and  follow  Christ  .       133 

6.  St  Paul's  Conversion  possesses  a  Cosmic   Realism 

about  it  which  sets  it  forth  as  a  foreboding  of  the 
future  Sacred  Interchange  of  Humanity  with  the 
Life  of  Christ  .  .  .  .  .       i34 

7.  Sanctity  is  the  one  divinely  real  Art,  for  by  Sanctity 

man  himself,  and  not  a  piece  of  wood  or  stone,  is 
fashioned  into  the  expression  of  his  great  Design 
of  the  sum  of  beauty  .  .  .  .136 

8.  St  Francis  was  a  true  Doctor  of  the  Truth  of  the 

Fatherhood  of  God  .  .  .  .  .137 

9.  The  Holy  Eucharist  is  the  institutional  predetermina- 

tion of  the  Second  Coming  of  Christ  .  .138 

10.  The  work  of  the  Holy  Ghost  in  Souls  causes  Christ 
to  become  visibly  manifest  through  His  Disciples 
who  receive  Him  in  the  Holy  Eucharist     .  .       141 


CONTENTS  xix 

1 1.  The  Whole  Church  is  a  kind  of  bodily  reality  and     p^ob 

structural  ordering  of  the  living  Impression  of 
Christ,  who  dwells  in  the  Church     .  .  .144 

12.  Because  each  and  every  spiritual  reality  possess  a 

bodily  reality  conjoined  to  it,  the  Church  of  Christ, 
which  is  a  spiritual  fact,  is  a  bodily  reality  too. 
Since  also  it  is  a  perpetuation  of  the  Impression  of 
Christ  that  part  of  our  sacred  and  united  Thought- 
World  which  is  stamped  with  His  spiritual  Impres- 
sion contains  His  bodily  reality  too  .  .145 

13.  In  the  Holy  Eucharist  there  is  the  principle  of  a 

changing  of  our  minds  and  reasons  in  order  that 
they  may  see  the  Blessed  Sovereignty  of  God  in 
all  the  Creation         .  .  .  .  .147 

14.  Christ,  though  sacrificed  for  us,  cannot  yet  assimilate 

Himself  to  our  inner  being,  unless  we  first  of  all 
present  our  souls  and  bodies  a  living  sacrifice  to 
Him   .......       148 

15.  The  Holy  Eucharist  is  the  medium  through  which 

the  Spirit  finally  brings  to  pass  the  fulfilment  of 
the  Promises  of  the  Old  and  New  Covenants  of 
God    .  .  .  .  .  .  .       149 


PART  VI 
Ten  Instructions  on  Titles  of  Christ 

1.  "Dayspring"     .  .  .  .  .  .155 

2.  "  Made  of  a  Woman  "    .....       156 

3.  "Great  Prophet"  .  .  ,  .  .158 


XX 

4 
5 
6 

7 
S. 

9 

10, 


CONTENTS 


Prince  of  Peace  " 


"Star  of  Jacob" 

"  Root  of  Jesse  " 

(The  Second)  "David" 

"  Servant " 

"  Messenger  of  the  Covenant " 

"Messiah" 


PAGE 

i6o 
i6i 
163 
165 
166 
168 
170 


PART  VII 


Instructions  on  Scriptural  Topics 


I.  Prophecy 

• 

• 

175 

2.  Social  Justice    . 

. 

. 

177 

3.  The  Royal  Prophet  and  the 

Royal 

Church      , 

178 

4.  Shepherd  and  Bishop  of  Souls. 

. 

.180 

5.  Poor  in  Spirit     . 

. 

182 

6.  Mercy     . 

. 

185 

7.  The  Birth  of  Christ 

. 

186 

8.  The  Shepherds  . 

. 

189 

9.  The  Manifestation 

. 

192 

10.  Carpenter  at  Nazareth  . 

. 

194 

II.  The  Empire  of  the  Servant 

. 

196 

PART    I 

THEISM,   THE  AFFIRMATIVE  VIEW 
OF  GOD  AND  MAN 


THEISM,  THE  AFFIRMATIVE  VIEW 
OF  GOD  AND  MAN 

"  What  is  Paradise  ?  All  things  that  are  ;  for  all  are  goodly 
and  pleasant,  and  therefore  may  fitly  be  called  a  Paradise. 
It  is  said  also,  that  Paradise  is  an  outer  court  of  Heaven.  Even 
so  this  world  is  verily  an  outer  court  of  the  Eternal,  or  of 
Eternity,  and  specially  whatever  in  Time,  or  any  temporal 
things  or  creatures,  manifesteth  or  remindeth  us  of  God  or 
Eternity  ;  for  the  creatures  are  a  guide  and  a  path  into  God 
and  Eternity.  Thus  this  world  is  an  outer  court  of  Eternity, 
and  therefore  it  may  well  be  called  a  Paradise,  for  such  it  is  in 
truth." —  Theologia  Gennanica. 

I. 

Theism^  the  rational  belief  in  a  Deity ^  is  simply  a 
sovereign  Affirmative  Way  of  regarding  the  Sum 
of  Life. 

Theism  is  the  spontaneous  acceptance  of  God  by 
the  intellect.  If  we  were  all  Theists  there  would  be 
no  divisions  of  Christendom,  because  Theism  is  the 
supreme  brotherly  and  unitive  force  in  thought,  and 
leaves  no  place  for  two  Gods  in  the  religion  and 
solemn  worship  of  Man,  nor  for  two  mankinds  in  our 
brotherly  comprehension  of  the  one  mankind. 

Theism  is  more  than  a  philosophy ;  it  is  a  total 
affirmative   and  brotherly  attitude  of  mind  towards 


4  THEISM 

ourselves  and  the  universe.  It  is  not  a  new  Science 
of  the  Universe,  but  the  introduction  of  the  Style  of 
God  in  dealing  with  the  existing  Science :  Theism  is 
the  true  Synthesis  of  all  Sciences. 

Theism  is  the  simple  recognition  that  Nature  and 
the  Universe  portend  **  substance,"  that  is,  an  eternal 
and  fraternal  City  ;  that  all  things  visible  and  invisible 
mean  God. 

Philosophers  count  on  artifice ;  theists  like 
Shakespeare,  Dante,  and  Isaiah  talk  in  God's  human 
style  and  are  not  afraid  that  they  may  be  wrong. 

If  we  could  but  interpret  Christ  into  plain  language 
of  the  Father,  then  the  people  of  the  abysses  would 
hear  His  voice  in  us  and  live.  But  we  never  can  do 
so  until  we  talk  in  that  great  affirmative  style  of 
Isaiah  and  Paul  and  John  the  Evangelist,  in  the 
power  of  God  and  Man. 

II. 

The  T heist ^  that  is,  the  believer  in  God,  or  the  Universal 
Enthusiast  for  God,  sees  the  entire  Creation  as  a 
Hymn  of  Praise  to  God  ifi  Paradise. 

If  I  make  my  confession  of  faith  saying,  "  I 
believe  in  God ! "  I  include  in  that  confession,  my 
faith  in  the  final  realisation  of  every  natural  impulse 
of  man. 

If  indeed  I  do  so  in  every  moment  of  my  life,  I 
foretaste  the  truth  of  Paradise,  for  the  whole  of  the 
Heart's  Desire  is  shown  in  every  creature  which  God 
has  made  ;  and  every  creature  that  I  am  in  contact 
with  yields  me  Him  and  a  Vision  of  Blessedness  in 
Him. 


THE  VISION  OF  GOD  5 

It  has  been  said  that  when  we  enter  Paradise  we 
shall  cease  to  believe  Him,  for  then  we  shall  see 
Him. 

What  this  really  means  is,  that  if  we  believed  in 
Him,  our  Vision  of  Him  would  be  contingent  upon 
the  conquest  of  our  Belief 

Faith  transmutes  the  Universe  into  the  Sight  of 
God :  "  I  shall  be  satisfied  when  I  awake  with  Thy 
likeness." 

Faith  is  this  awakening  and  the  beginning  of  the 
Resurrection  of  the  Dead  to  life ;  because,  through 
Faith,  man  lays  hold  of  immortality  in  every  leaf  and 
flower  and  tree. 

Faith  is  the  Containing  Wall  of  Paradise;  which 
with  its  strong  Mouldings,  and  secure  Foundations, 
and  crystal  Gates,  contains  this  Universe  in  the 
beatific  vision. 

Beatific  vision  is  the  sight,  as  of  the  forest 
of  the  oak  trees  in  the  single  acorn.  It  is  the 
sight  of  the  Universe  in  a  God-given  rule  of 
increase  for  ever.  It  is  the  presentiment  that  every 
particle  of  life  within  us  shall  dwell  in  the  New 
Creation. 

Belief  in  God  is  belief  in  the  Style  of  God,  that  is, 
in  Life's  lifelike  ways  of  life,  and  in  Life's  lifelike 
leading  unto  Life,  in  all  the  Universe. 

Belief  in  God  is  the  amazed  perpetual  discovery 
of  God  in  all  that  moves  and  breathes  in  the  great 
Whole  of  Things. 

Belief  in  God  only  is  not  the  final  possession  of 
God ;  because  Faith  teaches  the  grace  of  Charity, 
through  which  Humanity,  believing  together  in  one, 
and  in  brotherliness,   is   brave  enough  to  say,  "  All 


6  THEISM 

shall  be  saved   together,   or   no   one   ever   shall   be 
saved  ! " 

III. 
Theistic  unity  of  Matter  and  Spirit  in  God. 

Let  us  willingly  accept  Materiality  from  the 
material  world,  and  scout  a  heartless  Idealism,  since 
ordinary  Humanity  can  in  no  sense  live  in  a 
Universe  of  merely  ideal  things.  The  Moral  Good 
consists  in  a  unique  and  real  recognition  of  materi- 
ality in  an  eternally  immaterial  manner,  a  truth 
which  is  symbolised  in  the  words  of  the  Christian 
Creed,  "  I  believe  in  the  resurrection  of  the  body." 

Divide  matter  from  spirit,  and  in  Dualism  you 
have  but  two  unrealities,  which  for  the  length  of 
eternity  can  never  become  realities.  If,  on  the  con- 
trary, you  retain  the  materiality  of  matter,  and 
recognise  God  to  be  the  living  Plan  or  Design  of  all 
matter,  then  you  possess  the  Real  and  the  True, 
namely,  the  Moral  Good.  Yet,  to  evoke  the  real  from 
the  unreal  Universe,  is  a  task  inconceivably  beyond 
Man,  without  a  redemptive  return  of  the  intellect  of 
Man  to  God. 

The  intellect  must  retrace  its  path  through  its 
failures  unto  its  source  and  resource  in  God's  Plan 
of  Things,  and  be  renewed  even  as  it  was  first  designed, 
by  the  redemptive  action  of  the  indwelling  Christ. 
Intellectual  converts  towards  God  are  the  Seers  and 
Prophets  of  mankind,  because  their  sole  burden  is  to 
foretell  the  total  ransom  of  the  created  Universe. 
This  ransom  is,  that  God  Himself  be  known  as  Father 
to  all,  and  that  all  His  creatures  know  themselves  as 
children,  and  as  the  Single  Family  of  God. 


TRANSCENDENT  FAILURE  AND  SUCCESS    7 

At  the  moment  of  7nan's  utter  failure,  then  comes  the 
Opportunity  of  God ;  and  His  character  is  such 
that  this  opportunity  is  never  missed  by  Him. 

True  Religion  is  a  reversion  to  the  predestined 
success  of  God  from  out  the  many  unsuccesses  of 
the  Universe  and  Man. 

From  our  own  personal  point  of  view,  failures  are 
barriers  to  the  goal  of  our  life.  If  only  the  race  of 
men  lives,  and  men  themselves  do  not  live,  there  is 
no  success  in  life.  From  the  point  of  view  of  indi- 
vidual men,  the  failure  of  God  and  the  Universe  to 
Man  himself  would  then  be  a  transcendent  one.  If 
God  exists,  in  other  words,  it  is  inconceivable  that 
the  individual  man  can  perish.  To  say  so  would  be 
to  deny  the  existence  of  God,  which  is  indeed  the 
pledge  of  our  own  abiding. 

In  history  there  are  innumerable  failures,  tran- 
scendent of  themselves ;  but,  because  of  God,  there 
is  one  transcendent  but  all-embracing  success. 

These  transcendent  failures  are  all  individual  men. 
This  transcendent  success  is  the  Christ  of  God. 

The  pitting  of  many  failures  against  one  success  is 
the  history  of  God  in  Man,  that  is,  the  history  of  the 
redemption  of  Man. 

This  history  is  necessarily  quantitative,  or  timed 
with  times  and  placed  with  places.  The  Incarnation 
did  not  transmute  humanity  by  magic  into  a  race  of 
angelic  beings.  It  first  tamed  sinners,  by  under- 
standing Sin  as  man  masters  electricity  by  under- 
standing   electricity.      It    then    conquered    Sin    by 


8  THEISM 

remoulding  sinners,  and  the  Universe,  depraved  by 
Sin,  into  the  likeness  of  that  one  Success  of  history, 
the  Son  of  God  and  Man. 


The  Theist^  out  of  the  midst  of  the  modern  Scientific 
Vision  of  the  Oneness  of  the  whole  Universe^ 
acknowledges  the  new  significance  of  the  old  truth 
that  God  is  Father  and  Designer  of  Man. 

In  our  new  vistas  of  the  earth  and  heavens,  we 
have  scarcely  dared  to  think  of  the  truth  that  we  are 
still  of  the  designing  Thought  and  Might  of  God  : — 
"  When  the  Lord  turned  again  the  captivity  of 
Zion,  we  were  like  them  that  dream." 

Every  cell  within  our  bodies  is  His  genius  expressed 
in  us.  If  we  despise  the  body,  we  blaspheme  the 
genius  of  God. 

We  may  be  ashamed  of  the  body  and  of  our  origin, 
but  our  Contriver  has  put  His  Mind  into  it,  and  has 
set  His  Heart  on  it,  and  each  cell  within  the  body 
stirs  only  through  His  electric,  living  breath. 

Through  faith,  our  bodies  are  in  the  peace  of 
Paradise  regained.  If  we  do  not  possess  a  Paradise 
here  and  now,  yet  we  are  not  far  from  Paradise  ;  for 
within  our  bodies  is  its  only  origin,  and  the  fountains 
of  living  water  are  the  material  flow  of  our  being 
when  the  soul  shall  have  assumed  its  own  dominion, 
and  God  has  brought  it  to  pass  that  in  our  own  bodies 
we  shall  rise  again. 

Moral  life  is  the  possession  of  God  the  Father, 
because  it  alone  reveals  the  secret  through  which  we 


NEED  OF  APOCALYPTICISM  9 

can  possess  bodies  wherein  may  course  the  electric, 
living  breath  of  God. 

Moral  life  is  the  possession  of  the  universe  through 
the  body  which  brings  it  near  us,  until  every  motion 
of  our  lives  is  controlled  by  the  divine  whirlwind  of 
the  Spirit. 

Whithersoever  then  the  New  Knowledge  may 
lead  us,  we  must  remember  that,  now  and  for  ever, 
God  is  Father  to  Man,  and  that  Man's  body  is  the 
place  of  the  New  Creation. 

VI. 

Theism  is  not  the  blind  acceptance  of  Dogma,  but  is  a 
reasonable  and  helpful  way  of  thinking  about 
Dogma  in  its  significance  to  the  intellectual  and 
moral  outlook  of  mankind. 

Christian  Theism  is  that  orthodox  Vision  of  the 
Universe  in  which  All  Things  are  seen  as  gathered 
together  in  one  in  a  greater  fellowship  by  Christ ;  and 
Theism  implies,  though  this  has  often  been  forgotten, 
that  Christ  owns  a  gracious  likeness  to  life  and  move- 
ment everywhere,  and  is  in  living  conjunction  with 
all  that  breathes  and  moves  in  the  Universe. 

A  measure  of  judicious  apocalypticism  is  a  rightful 
tonic  in  these  days  of  timid  apologies  for  Christ ; 
especially  as  all  the  more  important  portions  of  the 
New  Testament  stand  or  fall  with  the  truth  of  the 
unitive  relationship  of  Christ  with  all  that  is  within 
the  earth  or  stars. 

Speaking  in  this  religious  logic,  Christ  is  proved  to 
be  the  Son  of  God,  because  His  personality,  being 
divine    morally,   is    necessarily  also  divine  substanti- 

B 


10  THEISM 

ally ;  that  is,  in  duration  and  persistence ;  since 
perfect  moral  life,  in  Theistic  logic,  is  a  form  of 
living  movement  in  a  personal  scheme  of  restfulness 
which  has  had  no  beginning  and  will  have  no  end. 

Theism,  which  makes  spiritual  things  the  heart  of 
earthly  things,  has  been  vastly  accredited  during  the 
last  few  years  by  the  scientific  announcement  that  all 
the  stellar  universe  consists  in  ordered  whirls  of 
ether  which  are  themselves  all  parts  of  a  single 
living  whirl  or  movement,  and  are  not  dead  matter 
goaded  into  activity  from  without. 

Every  atomic  whirl  of  "  electronic  "  sub-whirls,  and 
every  nebula  of  stars,  for  this  reason,  are  related 
to  personality ;  and  are  themselves  incipient  person- 
ality ;  because  personality  is  the  spiritual  ingathering 
of  the  movements  of  the  world  by  a  divine  increase 
or  simplification  into  an  initial  state  of  repose.  If 
the  music  which  is  evoked  from  matter  were  not 
conformable  to  personality,  it  could  never  affect 
the  emotions  of  the  mind  and  soul  of  man.  If 
the  animal  world  were  not  purposive  of  personality, 
the  body  of  man  could  not  workably  consort  with 
the  spirit  of  man. 

Personality  is  native  to  the  Spheres,  because  in 
the  proper  architectural  movement  of  personality,  all 
the  movement  and  the  music  of  the  Spheres  are,  in 
a  certain  mathematical  exactitude  of  manner,  repro- 
duced. Our  organ  of  reason  is  far  more  accurate 
in  its  making,  than  is  the  function  of  reason  in  its 
use.  This  organ,  the  rational  soul,  is  nothing 
else  but  the  devolution  within  us  of  the  Plan  of 
the  Universe  from  without  While  mind  is  a  reflec- 
tion  of  the    Universe,   in    Theistic    philosophy,   the 


THE  SOUUS  GREATER  FELLOWSHIP      11 

reflection  is  of  the  same  substance^  radically,  as 
the  Universe  itself.  Hence  the  key  to  the  dominion 
of  the  Universe  lies  within  us ;  and  hence  also 
the  Kingdom  of  Heaven  is  within  us,  in  no  meta- 
phorical use  of  the  words. 


vn. 

To  the   Theist^   the   Soul  is  a   recapitulation   of  the 
Universe  and  of  all  Spiritual  History. 

The  soul,  in  a  sense,  is  everything  or  it  is  nothing. 
The  soul  itself  is  Paradise ;  but  that  does  not  mean 
that  all  men  possess  their  souls ;  for  this  possession 
becomes  our  own  only  through  the  constancy  of  a 
life  of  moral  energy,  aided  by  the  Grace  of  Christ. 

The  soul  holds  every  problem  of  life  and  death 
in  a  concrete  and  God-given  form  of  movement 
within  itself.  Could  we  perfectly  possess  our  souls, 
the  tempest  of  the  raging  of  the  elements  would 
have  passed  away.  The  soul,  in  its  function  of 
Conscience,  is  itself  a  prophecy  of  the  Last  Judgment 
of  the  Universe,  and  portends  the  Last  and  Dreadful 
Day.  The  Moral  Life  is  nothing  else  but  the  accept- 
ance of  eternity,  through  Conscience,  from  the  soul. 
What  the  soul  teaches,  the  Universe  teaches  ;  and 
what  the  Universe  teaches,  is  from  the  Reason  of 
God.  What  way  of  life  the  soul  shows,  God 
eternally  confirms  ;  and  our  claim  to  share  in  the 
possession  of  the  Kingdom,  when  sanctioned  by 
the  soul,  is  sanctioned  by  the  Judge  of  the  Universe, 
in  whom  all  the  Living  and  Departed  Souls  within 
the  Universe  have  their  hope  of  life. 


12  THEISM 


VIII. 


Religion  is  neither  Emotional  Moral  life,  nor  the 
extension  of  Individual  Conversion!,  but  it  is  the 
Solemn  and  Institutional  Restoration  of  the  mind^ 
soul,  and  body  of  Man^  and  the  enttire  Creation^ 
before  the  Throne  of  God. 

In  England,  the  United  States,  and  elsewhere,  a 
problem  which  is  continually  discussed  is  whether 
or  no  Holiness  means  Ethics ;  whether,  that  is,  the 
essential  character  of  Christ's  Kingdom  is  the  observ- 
ance of  a  series  of  ethical  precepts  relating  to  how 
men  should  lead  abstemious  lives,  and  deal  with 
one  another ;  whether,  in  fine,  religion  is  solely  a 
pious  emotion  or  sentiment,  the  exclusively  earthly 
purpose  of  which  is  to  lead  men  to  do  what  is 
ethically  right.  Matthew  Arnold  popularised  the 
view  that  it  was  so,  in  his  essays  on  St  Paul  and 
Protestantism.  He  there  expressed  the  opinion  that 
religion  was  "  morality  tinged  with  emotion  "  ;  and  he 
chiefly  distinguished  Christ  from  Socrates,  Confucius, 
Moses,  or  Epictetus,  by  attributing  to  Christ  a  genius 
for  setting  forth  before  the  multitudes  precepts  like 
the  Golden  Rule  in  a  supreme  Art,  through  which 
their  cherished  and  heartfelt  emotions  were  touched 
and  aroused.  At  its  lowest,  the  power  of  exciting 
men  to  ideal  morality  by  emotional  means  does 
not  allow  for  Christ's  message  anything  new,  nor 
beyond  the  teachings  of  many  non-Christian  masters, 
except  a  mere  mastery  in  a  New  Art  of  moving  men 
to  goodness. 

But  Art,  such  as  that  of  Wagner's,  even  if  it  move 


EVANGELICAL  FAITH  13 

multitudes  of  men,  does  not  create  a  New  Universe 
in  which  human  and  cosmic  life  are  gathered  together 
in  one  in  Christ. 

So  too,  the  danger  of  Evangelicalism  is  not  in  what 
it  does  include,  but  in  what  it  does  not  allow  people 
to  include,  within  their  conception  of  the  Great  Whole 
of  a  Redeemed  Universe.  In  refusing  to  admit  the 
sensible  element  of  Redemption,  Evangelicals  are 
in  danger  of  making  Redemption  merely  emotional 
change. 

They  would,  however,  indignantly  repudiate  the 
imputation  that  the  only  essential  character  of  their 
Religion  was  the  morality  it  incited  men  to  by 
appealing  to  their  emotions.  The  orthodox  Evan- 
gelicals seek  to  justify  themselves  in  this  repudiation 
of  the  cosmic  element  in  Religion,  from  the  fact  that 
they  describe  Moral  Change  as  the  sign  of  Super- 
natural Salvation. 

While  the  doctrine  that  "  Faith  in  Christ  creates  the 
Moral  Change  "  thus  makes  room  for  a  transcendent 
conception  of  Salvation,  yet,  so  long  as  Faith  is 
entirely  individualistic,  and  only  concerns  the  Soul 
and  its  Maker,  the  New  Psychologists,  or  students  of 
the  Comparative  Science  of  Religion,  are  unable  to 
make  any  serious  distinction  between  conversions 
wrought  at  Evangelical  Revivals  and  those  wrought 
by  the  innumerable  other  influences,  such  as  friendly 
personal  influences,  shocks,  disasters,  illnesses,  or  the 
good  example  of  other  persons,  none  of  which  are  in 
themselves  religious  influences.  In  the  Evangelical 
Churches  of  to-day,  vistas  are  opening  of  a  Social 
Conception  of  Religion  which  is  far  more  Christ-like 
in  tone  than   the  narrow  Evangelical  conception  of 


14  THEISM 

an  individual  ransom.  But  the  rule  obtains  among 
all  the  Protestant  Churches,  in  the  proportion  in 
which  their  Protestantism  dominates  them,  that 
Religion  and  Individualistic  Morals  are  practically 
identical,  and  that  Churches  are  instruments  whose 
function  is  to  create  self-centred  moral  lives. 

If  we  widen  Ethics  from  the  Individualism  of 
Conversion  to  the  Collectivism  of  the  observance  of 
the  Golden  Rule  of  Christian  conduct  between  all 
men,  all  classes  of  society  and  all  nations,  we 
certainly  reach  to  the  great  and  eternal  condition  on 
the  part  of  man  without  which  there  can  be  no 
genuine  religion  of  Christ.  But  this  Human  Alliance 
in  brotherly  kindness  transcends  Matthew  Arnold's 
mere  emotionalism,  since  it  is  the  human  term  of  an 
immortal  Alliance  between  God  and  Man,  including 
that  total  cosmic  change  in  man  which  Christ  meant 
by  the  Coming  of  the  Kingdom  of  God.  This 
Coming  of  the  Kingdom  follows  upon  conversion  to 
the  observance  of  the  Ethics  of  Christ,  as  the  Descent 
of  the  Holy  Ghost  followed  the  conversion  of  the 
Disciples  and  Apostles  by  the  life  and  preaching  of 
their  Master. 

The  True  Religion,  therefore,  is  a  power  which 
converts  men  to  worship  God  the  Father  in  just 
Economics ;  to  love  the  Son  of  God  and  all  mankind 
in  the  Christian  Moral  law  ;  and  finally,  which  gathers 
up  the  expression  of  the  entire  cosmic  life  in  the 
mind,  and  soul,  and  body  of  the  Saints  of  God  in 
the  Kingdom  of  the  Holy  Ghost ;  and  thereby  yields 
back  the  sensible  and  spiritual  unto  the  power  of  the 
immortalising  Sovereignty  of  God. 


SOCIAL  DUTY  15 


IX. 


Moral  Theology  imperatively  requires  that  no  individtial 
man^  woman,  or  child  should  be  left  iincared  for 
by  the  Commonwealth  ;  but  it  leaves  the  Method 
of  Social  Redemption  free  to  each  one's  own  best 
individual  judgment. 

The  relationship  of  the  Sciences  of  Economics  and 
Sociology  with  any  conceivable  embodiment  of  the 
True  Religion  is  an  obvious  and  permanent  one,  and 
is  as  follows  : — • 

The  moral  activities  of  every  worshipper  of  the 
true  God  are  required,  by  the  very  nature  and  truth 
of  God,  to  be  directed  in  a  voluntary  manner  towards 
a  reasonable  and  complete  restoration  of  humanity 
into  some  state  of  Natural  or  Social  Blessedness,  in 
which  every  human  being  is  cared  for  in  regard  to 
the  necessities  of  bodily  life. 

Conversely,  no  one  can  claim  to  be  a  worshipper  of 
the  true  God  who  does  not  take  a  voluntary  part  in 
shaping  Human  Society  in  accordance  with  the 
eternal  Law  of  its  economic  well-being. 

These  obligations  commit  no  one  to  Socialism, 
unless  the  individual  concerned  belongs  by  conviction 
to  the  number  of  those  who  believe  that  Socialism  is 
the  righteous  economic  goal  of  existing  Human 
Society.  For  a  similar  reason  they  commit  no  one 
to  Individualism,  nor  to  any  other  System.  But  they 
do  require  of  every  Christian  that  he  should  study 
the  Law  of  Social  Blessedness,  and  devote  his  time 
and  energies  to  its  fulfilment.  In  the  Middle  Ages 
there  was  a  Feudal  System  which  took  into  account 


16  THEISM 

every  man,  woman,  and  child  in  the  Christian 
Commonwealth.  The  basal  Moral  Law  of  the 
Christian  Commonwealth  of  to-day  requires  that, 
in  an  equal  manner,  no  individual  man,  woman,  or 
child  should  be  left  outside  of  the  Commonwealth, 
either  in  a  socialistic  manner  of  inclusion,  or  through 
some  intensive  type  of  individualism  ;  so  that  there 
should  remain  no  exceptions  whatever.  Or,  other- 
wise, it  requires  that  Christians  should  create  a  New 
Feudalism  which  would  solidify  the  interests  of  the 
people  of  the  Abyss  with  the  people  of  the  Front 
Ranks  of  Society. 

No  one  and  no  creature  should  be  left  out,  or 
God  ceases  to  be  the  God  of  the  Worship  of  Man. 
Any  economic  system,  for  instance,  which  leaves  the 
least  of  men  without  housing,  or  occupation,  or  contact 
with  the  resources  of  Nature,  is  a  direct  war  against 
the  fulfilment  of  the  Fatherly  Will  of  God.  Moreover, 
it  cuts  off  God  from  His  own  Paradise,  which  is  the 
delight  of  exercising  His  Fatherliness  and  Fatherly 
Will  towards  every  creature ;  for  there  can  be 
no  full  Paradise  to  God  if  one  single  creature  is 
left  unprovided  for,  and  if  God's  own  delight  is  not 
fulfilled  in  their  delight. 


THE  SOVEREIGNTY  OF  GOD  17 


X. 

The  Kingdom  of  God  in  relation  to  the  distribution  of 
earthly  goods ^  is  founded  on  inner  moral  co7tversion 
to  the  Recognition  that  there  is  a  Sovereignty 
of  God  in  the  whole  material  Universe,  and  that 
the  purport  of  this  Sovereignty  to  us  is,  that,  by 
putting  in  force  a  just  system  of  economics  we 
should  facilitate  the  observance  of  the  Moral 
Teaching  of  Christ. 

When  Christ  said,  "  Seek  ye  first  the  Kingdom 
of  God  and  His  justice,  and  all  these  things 
shall  be  added  unto  you,"  His  words  bear  witness 
to  the  social  inclusiveness  of  His  Vision  of  the 
Kingdom  of  God. 

The  word  "  Kingdom,"  in  the  East,  says  the  great 
Orientalist,  Gustav  Dalman,  never  signified  a  terri- 
tory or  place ;  but  rather,  the  power,  control,  or 
dominion  which  extended  over  territory  and  place. 
The  words  "  Sovereignty  of  God,"  therefore,  are  a  more 
closely  literal  translation  of  the  terms  in  its  Eastern 
usage  than  "  Kingdom  of  God."  In  a  free  paraphrase 
the  meaning  of  the  sentence  might  thus  be  rendered : 
"  Seek  you  therefore  the  secret  of  the  Sovereign  Rule 
of  God  in  Heaven,  which  also  should  obtain  on 
Earth,  with  the  justice  which  belongs  to  His  sovereign 
rule;  and  all  the  needs  of  earthly  life,  without 
further  concern  by  you,  will  ever  be  supplied  for, 
or  added  unto  you."  In  Christ's  teaching,  this  rule 
of  the  Sovereignty  of  God  is  viewed  as  having 
already  extended  itself  everywhere  in  the  Universe 
ever  since   the  Creation ;  but  in   the  conscious   life 

C 


18  THEISM 

of  man,  the  seeking  for  and  finding  of  the  Kingdom 
related  to  the  seeking  for  and  finding  of  that  divine 
view-point  of  Human  Life's  environment,  through 
reaching  which,  the  natural  resources  of  the  earth 
would  be  utilised  in  perpetually  just  laws  of  distribu- 
tion. It  was  as  though  a  wise  man  should  tell  a 
master  of  a  vineyard  whose  family  were  oppressed 
with  anxiety  on  account  of  poverty  from  bad  harvests, 
"  Seek  everywhere  until  you  find  out  the  secret  of 
the  fruitful  growth  of  the  vine,  and  you  and  all 
your  house  shall  be  blessed." 

Now,  evidently  in  so  far  as  Christ's  Kingdom 
meant  a  communion  of  men  in  which  His  Spirit 
ruled,  it  was  not  the  same  thing  precisely  as  the 
rule  by  which  man's  physical  life  endures  ;  but  God's 
Sovereignty,  on  the  contrary,  had  immediate  relation- 
ship with  man's  physical  needs,  as  the  whole  of 
the  Gospels  testify.  For  practical  purposes,  the 
seeking  and  finding  of  God's  Sovereignty  was  the 
seeking  and  finding  of  a  general  law,  dominating 
in  Economics,  whereby  Christ's  ethical  Teachings 
might  be  practised  and  His  Kingdom  won,  without 
too  engrossing  an  absorption  over  physical  needs. 
It  was  therefore  the  discovery  of  some  secret  of 
a  divine  justice  in  Economics,  facilitating  the  practice 
of  Christ's  commandments,  and  thereby  making 
ready  for  the  fulfilment  of  His  promises  about  the 
Coming  of  the  Reign  of  the  Spirit  of  God. 

If  men  have  not  loved  one  another  in  Christ, 
the  deep-seated  reason  why  they  have  not  done 
so  is  to  be  found  in  their  prior  refusal  to  worship 
God  the  Father  by  acknowledging  that  they  are 
but   Stewards   of   His  vineyard,  the   earth,  through 


RELIGION  AND  ECONOMICS  19 

which    He   has   willed    from    everlasting   to   provide 
for  all  the  material  wants  of  men. 


XL 

There  are  Three  Witnesses  of  God:  in  Sound  Economics, 
which  make  room  for  this  Fatherly  Beneficence ; 
in  Social  Ethics,  which  brings  Christ  to  Man ; 
and  in  Holiness,  which  brings  Man  into  the  like- 
ness of  Christ. 

I.  Economics 

There  is  a  convergence  of  tendencies  in  the  Social 
World  centring  aroicnd  the  Church  of  Christ,  whose 
Slimmed  effect  is  to  secure  the  provision  of  the  means  of 
subsistence  for  the  ever-increasing  population  of  the 
World  in  at  least  the  miftimum  amount  required  to 
make  reasonably  easy  the  observance  of  the  Moral  Law  ; 
and  this  movement,  or  law,  is  a  practical  demonstration 
of  the  truth  that  God  is  Father  to  man. 

The  productivity  of  Nature  is  essentially  bound  up 
with  the  productivity  of  God.  If  I  sow  my  wheat- 
field  with  tares,  I  must  not  blame  God  that  there  is 
not  enough  wheat.  Or,  if  God  sends  labourers  into 
His  vineyard  of  the  earth,  and  I  close  the  door  to 
them,  and  say  there  is  no  place  for  them  to  work  in ; 
it  is  God  Himself  whom  I  have  shut  out  from  His 
vineyard  rather  than  only  man.  God  does  not  say 
that  men  should  not  own  the  earth  under  His  owner- 
ship of  the  earth  ;  but  if  men  do  hold  God's  fields  in 
trust  for  God,  they  must  allow  God  to  enter  therein 
and  give  place  to  work  in  for  all  whom  He  has  sent 
into    His   vineyards   and    His   fields.     The  blood  of 


20  THEISM 

everyone  who  dies  because  he  has  not  been  allowed 
*'  place  to  work  "  in  God's  vineyard,  is  upon  every  evil 
Steward  of  the  Land  of  God.  How  can  God  be 
Father  to  man  if  He  be  inhibited  from  giving  His 
increase  to  the  labours  of  man  ?  In  every  outcast 
whom  Christian  Society  has  given  no  place  to  work 
in,  it  has  prevented  God's  fatherly  beneficence  to 
man  from  coming  into  effect. 

2.  Ethics 

There  is  a  Law  in  operation  in  the  World — creating 
tendencies  and  radiating  influences ;  seated  in  the 
Church  of  Christ ;  through  which  Christian  Ethics 
tends  to  conciliate  and  unify  mankind;  inaugurating 
Charity  between  Men  and  Nations  ;  revealing  through 
institutional  means  the  Brotherhood  of  Man  and  pre- 
paring the  way,  by  Peace  and  Good  Will  on  Earth,  for 
the  Co77iing  of  the  Holy  Spirit  through  the  Church  on 
all  the  World. 

In  a  holy  fraternity  with  the  natural  reason  of 
Man,  Christ  solved  many  of  our  problems,  besides 
unveiling  His  own  mysteries.  The  Sermon  on  the 
Mount  is  mostly  Human  Reason,  not  the  Revelation 
of  God.  As  such,  Christ  has  left  us  to  continue  His 
Sermon  on  the  Mountain  for  every  new  occasion 
until  the  end  of  time.  All  our  best  Social  Ethics  of 
the  day  are  a  perpetuation  of  the  human  reasoning 
of  Christ.  It  avails  little  to  the  Church  of  Christ  to 
offer  up  its  gift  upon  the  Altar,  unless  the  members 
of  the  Church  of  Christ  are  first  reconciled  with  all 
their  brother  men.  The  Holy  Ghost  who  is  on  high, 
above  every  Altar  of  the  Church  has  delayed  until 
now  from  sending  down  His   universal   Pentecost — 


THE  LAW  OF  HOLINESS  21 

the  Spiritual  Coming  of  Christ — until  men  shall 
learn  to  come  to  Him  in  the  human  brotherhood  of 
the  Human  Christ,  upon  which  coming  to  the  Altar, 
reconciled  with  all  men,  the  Holy  Ghost  will  send 
down  His  blessing  upon  the  Sacrifice,  and  the  long- 
delayed  Kingdom  of  the  Holy  Spirit  will  arrive. 

3.  Holiness 

There  is  a  Law  in  operation — conditioned  in  its 
operation  by  the  progressive  establishment  of  satisfactory 
economic  conditions  which  make  life  bearable;  conditioned 
by  the  applied  Christian  ethics  which  make  brotherhood 
a  fact ;  attractijig  individuals  to  live  superhuman 
liveSy  which,  in  turn,  radiate  their  light  and  power  in 
the  mission  of  the  Church  to  the  World,  consolidating 
her  Citizenship  with  a  supernatural  bond,  expa?tding 
her  Empire,  and  beginning  the  transformatio7t  of  the 
World  into  the  conscious  sovereignty  of  the  Spirit  of 
God. 

Worse  than  any  Schism  between  the  branches  of 
the  Church,  is  the  Schism  within  the  Church  between 
the  would-be  Saintliness  of  some,  and  the  Law  of  the 
Fatherly  Sufferance  of  all  men  so  to  live  that  they  be 
not  prevented  by  their  surroundings  from  the  observ- 
ance of  the  Teachings  of  Christ.  The  would-be  Saint 
who  does  not  interpret  God's  Fatherhood  to  man  in 
just  economics,  nor  interpret  Christ's  Sonship  in  the 
world  by  universal  fraternity  with  all  men,  is  either 
mocking  God  or  else  he  disbelieves  that  the  Holy 
Ghost  is  in  eternal  union  with  the  Father's  reign  of  just 
economics  and  the  Son's  reign  of  Brotherhood  among 
men.  Christ  will  not  return  to  the  earth  in  a  spiritual 
manner  with  thousands  of  His  Saints,  until  the  con- 


22  THEISM 

ditions  which  have  been  set  from  eternity  upon  the 
way  of  His  appearance  have  been  fulfilled  ; 

Until  His  Saints,  accepting  all  the  living  knowledge 
of  His  Universe,  shall  see  in  the  New  Heavens 
revealed  by  the  Natural  Science  of  God's  Creation 
the  Reign  of  the  Reason  of  God  ; 

Until  they  render  bodily  acknowledgment  to  God's 
Fatherhood  in  economic  justice  to  all  humanity ; 

Until  they  fraternise  with  all  sorts  and  conditions  of 
men ;  in  all  consciences,  and  in  all  faiths,  and  with  all 
hopes. 

The  times  and  moments  which  the  Father  has  set 
within  His  power  are  nothing  else  but  the  times  and 
moments  it  will  take  mankind  to  understand  the 
conditions  which  must  be  fulfilled  before  the  Son 
shall  appear  in  His  Kingdom  in  that  spiritual  manner 
which  shall  rehearse  the  Final  Judgment  of  the 
World. 


PART  II 

THE  COSMIC  VISION  OF  CHRIST 


THE  COSMIC  VISION  OF  CHRIST 

"  We  which  are  alive  and  remain  unto  the  coming  of  the  Lord 
shall  not  prevent  them  which  are  asleep. 

"For  the  Lord  Himself  shall  descend  from  heaven  with  a 
shout,  with  the  voice  of  the  archangel,  and  with  the  trump  of 
God  :  and  the  dead  in  Christ  shall  rise  first  : 

"Then  we  which  are  alive  and  remain  shall  be  caught  up 
together  with  them  in  the  clouds,  to  meet  the  Lord  in  the  air  : 
and  so  shall  we  ever  be  with  the  Lord." — St  Paul. 

I. 

The  spiritual  Coming  of  Christ  is  not  His  bodily 
Apparition  in  the  Worlds  but  it  is  His  Coming 
through  our  comprehensive  seeing  of  Him  in 
Heaven  and  Earth,  through  all  that  exists  therein. 

There  is  often  much  mystery  expressed  about  a  so- 
called  Second  Advent  of  Christ ;  but  from  the 
Theistic  point  of  view,  this  truth,  at  least  in  its 
spiritual  expression,  is  devoid  of  mystery.  If  Christ 
be  the  Reason  of  God,  how  can  He  help  but  appear 
some  day  from  behind  the  clouds  ?  The  doctrine  of 
the  Spiritual  Advent  is  the  mere  assertion  that  at  a 
certain  moment  of  history,  mankind's  consciousness 
of  Christ  will  grow  to  a  point  of  intensity  which  will 
make  it  a  spiritual  Second  Coming  of  Christ.     For, 

25  ^ 


26         THE  COSMIC  VISION  OF  CHRIST 

in  reality,  the  only  Second  Coming  concerning  which 
we  can  know  anything,  must  come  from  the  filling  up 
and  making  whole  of  our  consciousness  of  the  First 
Advent.  The  "  Second  "  Advent  is  the  recoil  of  our 
consciousness  of  the  First,  and  our  recognition  that 
all  the  beings,  personalities,  and  objects  of  our  inner 
Faith-World  tend,  by  a  necessary  law  of  things, 
to  embody  themselves  in  time  in  outward  events  of 
human  history.  There  is,  within  our  minds,  that 
which  is  in  solidarity  with  the  fact  of  Heaven. 
Therefore,  Christ  reigning  in  our  Heaven  is  Christ 
reigning  in  our  minds ;  and  Christ  reigning  in  our 
minds  is  not  far  away  from  Christ  so  appearing  to  us 
from  the  clouds  of  Heaven. 

II. 

Christ  being  the  Omnipresent  Reason  of  God,  returns 
to  us  in  Reality  after  He  returns  to  us  in 
Thought. 

Christ  is  that  Reason  of  God  whose  effective 
laws  in  the  Universe  are  the  subject  of  all  Scientific 
Research.  Christ  is  the  Model  after  which  Man 
was  made,  and  towards  which  all  movements  in 
human  history  converge.  Christ  is  the  central 
Heart  of  all  the  graces  and  adornments  of  Human 
Culture. 

With  the  aid  therefore  of  all  Science  to  under- 
stand His  Omnipotence  ;  with  the  aid  of  all  History 
to  understand  His  Character ;  and  with  the  aid  of 
all  Culture  to  understand  His  Grace,  may  not  His 
New  Disciples  rediscover  the  apostolic  consciousness 
toward    Christ?      Seeing  once  again  His  brightness 


THE  GENERAL  JUDGMENT  27 

in  all  the  heavens,  and  retracing  His  footsteps  in 
the  ways  and  lanes  of  every  city,  and  amid  all 
the  people — may  they  not  have  joy  showing  forth  the 
beneficence  of  His  Face  ?  The  angel  at  the  Ascension 
said,  that  as  He  had  once  gone  on  His  way  towards 
the  cloudy  places  of  Heaven,  so  some  day  would 
He  leave  the  cloudy  places  of  Heaven  and  return 
to  the  clear  places  of  our  earth.  We  are  told  else- 
where that,  in  those  days,  wherever  we  shall  raise  the 
stone,  we  shall  find  Him  ;  and  where  every  woodman 
shall  cleave  the  wood,  there  also  shall  Christ  be 
found. 

III. 

The  General  Judgment  is  in  a  sense  always  going 
OHy  and  we  may  spiritually  enter  into  its  presence 
and  be  renewed  by  the  controlling  force  of  its 
Realism. 

Unless  we  examine  our  Consciences  in  the  light 
of  the  General  Judgment,  we  can  never  understand 
the  simplicity  of  the  Mind  of  Christ,  nor  the  single- 
ness of  the  claim  of  the  Reason  of  God  within 
Him  to  control  the  earth  and  stars.  The  instinct 
of  the  great  preachers  of  repentence,  like  Savonarola, 
were  not  altogether  at  fault  when  they  foretold  the 
General  Judgment.  Repentance  is  a  spiritual  and 
near  rehearsal  of  the  maybe  far-off  General  Judg- 
ment ;  and  Repentance  is  so  because  the  Future 
of  the  World  exists,  in  a  sense,  Here  and  Now, 
as  foretold  within  our  souls. 

Also  by  perfect  faith  in  Christ  we  can  forestall  the 
End  of  All  Things.    Anyhow,  the  Science,  Philosophy, 


28         THE  COSMIC  VISION  OF  CHRIST 

and  Culture  of  the  day  are  only  seen  in  their  right 
perspective  when  we  have  weighed  them  in  the  balance 
over  the  depths  of  the  abyss,  and  seen  them  in  the 
light  of  their  consummation  in  Christ's  final  Judgment 
of  the  world.  What  is  needed  therefore  is  a  spiritual 
rehearsal  of  that  Judgment,  and  a  return  from  thence 
to  thoughts  of  earth,  with  a  re-found  simplicity  of 
mind,  and  a  penitential  singleness  of  heart.  With 
these  gifts  we  shall  be  able  to  approve  the  fact  which 
most  concerns  us,  namely,  the  fact  that  we  are 
members  of  the  Living  Body  and  Soul  of  Christ 
in  the  Church  of  Christ,  and  know  and  realise 
that  His  Church  is  the  Great  Simplification,  in 
a  living  form,  of  all  that  is  in  the  earth,  or  under 
the  earth,  or  in  the  stars. 


IV. 

A  right  Theism^  or  Rational  Theory  of  God,  teaches 
the  essential  and  ultiinate  control  by  Moral 
Goodness  of  all  physical  reality,  and  thus  explains 
how  Christ  is  the  deepest  Motive  Force  in  History. 

All  the  current  sayings  about  the  unique  power 
and  influence  of  the  moral  personality  of  Christ  in 
impressing  men's  minds  and  moving  their  hearts, 
are  true,  but  are  much  more  true  than  they  who 
utter  them  suppose.  They  are  true  in  the  substan- 
tial reality  of  God's  Sovereign  Rule,  which  causes 
physical  reality  to  cohere  with  moral  facts  within  a 
single  and  eternal  scheme  of  Being. 

If  Christ  rose  from  the  dead  in  hearts  and  in  souls, 
He  necessarily  arose  again  from  the  dead  in  physical 


A  SPIRITUAL  ORDER  29 

fact ;     because    all    soul-facts    are,     in     one     term, 
necessarily  also  physical  facts. 

What  then  is  the  goal  of  the  Incarnation  in  history  ? 
Redemption  was  no  mere  artifice  for  making  men 
into  angelic  beings ;  it  was  the  implantation  of  the 
Reason  and  Power  of  God  into  actual  history  :  over- 
ruling existing  plots  of  Earthly  Kingdoms  in  an 
easy,  gracious,  and  lifelike  manner ;  until  Humanity 
having  mastered  its  environment  in  political  and  re- 
ligious experience,  and  in  the  Science  of  everything 
in  Earth  and  Heaven,  should  at  a  certain  moment  of 
history  discover  that  its  Motive  Power  within  all 
movements  is  its  Redeeming  God.  All  science  is 
thus  Science  of  Christ,  and  all  knowledge  of  Nature, 
Knowledge  of  His  place  in  and  with  Nature,  and  all 
knowledge  of  Man,  Knowledge  of  His  Human  Soul, 
which  is  the  radiative  force  of  whatever  is  good  in 
Man. 

V. 

If  all  the  Laws  of  the  Universe  which  Science 
discovers  are  laws  of  the  Reason  of  God,  and  are 
therefore  ^'statutes'''  and  ^testimonies  "  ^'  comijiand- 
7nents"  "  ordinances"  and  "  laws  "  of  the  Heavenly 
Christ,  then  scientific  t J  linkers  deserve  the 
blessings  of  the  1 1  gth  Psalm. 

Believers  in  the  true  Theistic  view  of  the  Universe, 
re-found  from  Isaiah,  John  the  Evangelist,  Augustine, 
Francis,  Aquinas,  are  likely  to  constitute  a  new 
spiritual  Order  rather  than  a  new  Sect,  because 
through  aid  of  this  divine  view-point  in  things  the 
possibilities  of  a  new  sectarianism  will  have  definitely 
ceased. 


30         THE  COSMIC  VISION  OF  CHRIST 

Having  reached  the  Theistic  point  of  view,  there 
can  be  no  further  trouble,  neither,  from  the  pressing 
critical  questions  of  the  day.  To  the  Theist,  all 
Science  is  Science  of  God. 

Men  like  Darwin  and  Herbert  Spencer  were  they 
who,  to  the  true  Theist,  more  than  any  others  in  the 
nineteenth  century,  meditated  day  and  night  on 
the  Law  of  the  Lord  and  loved  His  testimonies. 
The  new  Order  of  Christ  would,  in  duty  bound,  love 
Nature  and  the  Science  of  Nature  equally  with  their 
most  confirmed  naturalistic  devotees.  They  would 
be  the  positivists  of  God.  Having  discovered  in 
what  manner  the  Universe  is  founded  upon  the 
Tables  of  His  eternal  Sinai,  the  Reign  of  Law,  His 
rule  of  Stable  Motion  in  any  possible  stellar  universe, 
they  will  see  that  the  principle  of  the  Stable  Motion, 
in  which  the  Universe  moves  towards  its  eternal 
resting-place,  is  the  Divine  Reason  of  the  Godhead 
which  reigns  in  Christ. 

VI. 

Music  could  not  exist  for  us  in  this  or  that  renderings 
unless  it  already  pre-existed  in  an  unrendered 
state  in  every  particle  of  the  Universe.  The 
universal  modulation  of  material  being  evoked 
in  Music  finds  a  response  in  the  Heart  of  Man. 
The  Universe  then  is  strung  upon  chords  of 
essential  personality ^  and  is  as  the  Music  unto  the 
Eternal  Reason  of  God. 

No  wonder  that  the  Shepherds  heard  music  around 
Bethlehem.  This  Universe  is  all  Music  which 
surrounds  the  Face  of  Christ.     Music  is  the  personal 


MUSIC,  A  SPIRITUAL  REALITY  31 

melody  and  harmony  in  every  two  islets  of  being  in 
the  great  ethereal  sea,  in  so  far  as  they  are  strung 
together  in  the  great  Psaltery  of  the  Word  of  God. 

The  only  essential  person  within  the  Universe  is 
the  Word,  the  Reason  of  God ;  just  as  the  only 
essential  person  belmid  the  Universe  is  God  the 
Father,  and  before  the  Universe  is  God  the  Holy 
Ghost. 

The  Theist  says  that  spirit  and  matter  are  in 
reality  one,  and  that  whatever  is  in  the  lowest  thing 
of  the  universe  is  in  the  highest  object  seen  and 
known,  and  whatever  is  in  the  highest  object  is 
foreboded  in  the  lowest  object. 

Now  it  is  just  because  the  structure  of  all  things 
that  are  microcosmic  and  macrocosmic  agree  with 
personality,  that  we  know  that  a  Son  of  God  exists. 
For  the  Universe  agreed  with  the  nature  and 
essence  of  personality  before  ever  a  human  being 
existed ;  and  the  great  stamping  Power  that  stamped 
it  so  was  the  Person  of  God  the  Son. 

The  effluence  of  this  great  reality  of  the  Universe 
in  which  every  particle  of  the  Universe  strikes  a 
personal  chord,  is  Music.  The  entire  Universe  agrees 
with  the  soul,  because  it  is  made  for  the  soul,  and 
because  it  portends  and  prophesies  soul.  Music,  in 
itself  a  mere  bodily  quiver  of  material  elements, 
since  it  also  affects  the  soul  of  man,  proves  that  the 
Movement  of  the  Universe  is  itself  spiritual  and 
personal,  and  demonstrates  the  living  Reason  of 
God. 

Before  therefore  Man  existed,  his  Model  existed 
in  the  Eternal  Son  of  God ;  and  every  movement  in 
the  world  was  unto  an  expression  of  Him  in  Man, 


32         THE  COSMIC  VISION  OF  CHRIST 

and   unto    an    expression    of    Him    as     God-made 
Man. 

Is  this  man-centred  pride  ?  Do  the  stars  exist  for 
man  ?  Maybe  not ;  but,  nevertheless,  Man  is  the 
resting-place  of  the  stars,  for  Man  is  but  the  embodi- 
ment of  the  stars  and  all  the  Universe,  in  the 
beginnings  of  their  rest.  Personality  in  Man  is  but 
the  earth  and  air  and  sea  simplified  in  one ;  its 
movement  is  their  movement,  its  light  is  their  light, 
its  fire  is  their  fire.  The  poet  rightly  speaks  of  the 
"  Sky-  and  Sea-line  of  her  Soul." 

Because  Man  reveals  the  Universe,  and  forebodes 
the  Goal  of  the  Universe,  the  Universe  reveals  the 
Son  of  God. 

For  if  the  Universe  were  personal  in  every  atom  of 
its  existence  before  Man  came,  the  Personality 
which  made  it  personal,  and  which  in  time  revealed 
Itself  to  Man,  was  an  Eternal  Person,  the  Goal  of 
the  work  of  the  Creating  God. 

Whence  is  the  shepherding  interest  of  some 
Power  in  Man,  in  history  ?  except  it  be  some  model 
Son  of  God  who  is  in  Man,  and  above  Man,  and 
whose  eternal  arms  are  below,  supporting  Man ;  and 
into  the  likeness  of  whose  form  the  nations  are 
controlled  and  over-ruled. 

Each  man  is  the  close-tissued  likeness  of  the  Son 
of  God  and  Man. 

Should  there  be  on  earth  a  perfect  "  son  of  man," 
that  "  son  of  man  "  would  indeed  very  likely  become 
a  saintly  manifestation  of  the  Son  of  God;  for  the 
transition  between  the  two  would  seem  to  be  too 
divinely  and  congruously  facile  a  thing  that  it  should 
not  come  to  pass. 


THE  CONTROL  OF  ENERGY  33 

The  Son  of  God  is  in  principle  the  Everything  in 
the  Universe,  and  the  Everything  in  the  Heart 
of  Man.  Should  the  Heart  of  Man  become,  by 
sympathy,  like  unto  that  Everything  within  itself,  by 
the  Power  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  then  the  Son  of  God 
would  indeed  be  newly  manifested  in  a  Saint  of 
Christ,  endowed  also  with  a  true  soul,  and  body,  and 
heart  of  Man. 

vn. 

The  Sword  of  our  control  over  Material  Forces  is 
cleaving  the  way  for  the  fulfilment  of  the  Incarna- 
tion. The  Single  Energy  of  the  Worlds  ?iamely^ 
the  Electric  Energy^  reveals  the  Reason  of  God 
which  in  the  Tables  of  its  Law  controls  this 
Energy  in  the  living  Structure  of  the  Universe. 

Scientists  are  the  veritable  angels  of  the  Reason 
or  Word  of  God,  since  the  sum  of  their  labours  is 
that  they  have  but  caused  His  presence  to  be 
witnessed  to,  in  the  predestining  Power  of  those  Tables 
of  the  Law  unto  which  Man,  and  Life,  and  Trees, 
and  Stones,  and  the  Universe,  have  been  called  from 
eternity  to  conform. 

In  a  true  sense  also,  the  Angel-Scientists  of  Christ 
control  His  Single  Energy,  His  Lightning,^  and 
bear  that  Archangel's  Sword  of  Lightning  in  their 
right  hand  to  clear  the  way  before  Him.  Philosophy 
is  no  longer  conjecture  about  realities,  but  a 
discipline  of  the  mind  to  comprehend  the  inter- 
actions of  the  laws  which  contain  the  sum  of  God*s 

^  Electricity,  in  rest  or  action,  we  are  told  now  in  every 
text-book,  is  "all  the  material  universe." 

£ 


34         THE  COSMIC  VISION  OF  CHRIST 

electric  Might.  If  we  comprehend  His  Niagara  of 
Energy,  we  can  harness  its  forces  to  work  with  us. 
In  this  friendly  and  apprehensive  sense,  then,  the 
Servants  of  Christ  are  to  take  to  themselves  the 
Science  which  is  the  Knowledge  of  the  practical 
control  of  His  Energy,  the  purposeful  control  of  His 
Lightning. 

And  if  all  energy  is  of  One  Power,  so  is  all  Power 
directed  by  the  single  Reason  of  God  seated  in  the 
midst  of  the  World  and  of  every  particle  within  the 
World.  Nor  could  the  Returning  of  the  Son  of  Man 
be  heralded  by  any  other  power  than  that  of 
Lightning;  because  no  other  power  exists  than  the 
electric  Might  which  is  shown  in  Lightning,  and  all 
Lightning,  therefore,  reveals  the  Son  of  God  and  Man. 


VIII. 

As  the  Eternal  Thought  of  God^  namely^  the  Word 
of  God,  is  of  the  same  substantial  reality  zvith  God 
the  Father,  so  is  all  our  World  of  Thought  and 
Striving,  namely,  the  Word  of  Man,  through  Christ, 
eq^ially  a  Substantial  World,  that  is  ultimately, 
a  Real  Paradise. 

A  former  generation  of  Anthropologists,  and 
Herbert  Spencer,  were  wont  to  trace  the  origin  of 
religions  to  a  belief  in  Ghosts.  St  Peter's  Basilica 
and  the  living  Christianity  of  to-day  would,  if  that 
were  true,  prove  that  more  romantic  realities  were 
the  outcome  of  Ghosts  than  we  were  wont  to  suppose. 
Theism,  at  least,  allows  that  thoughts  are  the  thread 
of  life  of  ultimate   things;  and   even   this   belief  is 


CHRISTIAN  MONISM  35 

hopeful    enough    without    romancing    as    much   as 
Herbert  Spencer. 

The  fault  of  the  Haeckels  and  Spencers  is  that 
they  are  not  consistent.  Having  as  "  monists  "  made 
all  things  one,  and  utterly  denied  that  there  is 
any  purely  ideal  "  substance,"  that  is,  any  World  of 
Thoughts  which  is  not  part  of  the  real  "  substance  "  of 
that  World  of  Things  we  daily  experience  ;  they  pro- 
ceed to  condemn  as  mere  mentality  the  Gods,  heavens, 
hells,  and  spirits  which  do  not  concur  with  their 
own  predilections.  A  consistent  Haeckel  would  be 
a  more  powerful  defender  of  Christ  as  the  Substance 
of  the  heart  of  man's  Universe  than  were  Augustine, 
Albertus  Magnus,  or  Aquinas.  For  none  of  these 
Christian  thinkers  could  marshal  such  an  array  of 
evidence  to  prove  that  Thoughts  become  Things,  and 
hence  that  it  is  reasonable  to  say  that  the  Word  be- 
comes Flesh,  as  Haeckel  or  Spencer  could.  So  great 
is  the  array  of  evidence  from  the  Monists  (that  is  those 
who  say  that  all  the  Universe  is  in  every  person,  and 
every  person  in  all  the  Universe),  that  were  Thomas 
Aquinas  among  us  to-day  he  would  probably  say, 
that  once  w^e  could  see  Christ  in  all  things  only 
by  faith,  but  that  now  we  could  see  Him  almost  as 
He  is,  namely,  almost  as  in  that  Blessed  Vision  of 
Christ  in  the  Universe  and  the  Universe  in  Christ, 
which  is  the  delight  of  the  Eternal  Paradise. 


36         THE  COSMIC  VISION  OF  CHRIST 


IX. 

Nearly  every  scientific  thinker  of  to-day  believes  in 
what  he  calls  "  Monism^'  fiamely^  that  the  entire 
Universe  coheres  together  in  a  single  rhythmic 
whole.  The  Theist^  however^  is  the  only  consistent 
'*  Monistl'  because  if  there  is  but  07ie  Reality  in 
the  movement  of  there  must  be  one  Goal  to, 
the  Universe ^  and  this  he  finds  in  the  Son  of  God 
and  Man. 

The  teaching  that  all  things  vibrate  together  in 
Spiritual  Oneness,  supplies  us  with  a  beautiful  con- 
ception of  the  Atonement  as  the  actual  struggle 
of  the  Son  of  God  to  give  us  peace.  This  view 
of  the  Atonement  is  not  a  new  one  nor  an  unscriptural 
one.  It  is  reached  merely  by  mentally  simplifying 
the  existing  Orthodox  and  Scriptural  views  by  aid 
of  logical  inferences  drawn  from  the  fact  of  the 
Spiritual  Unity  of  All  Things. 

Because  the  human  soul,  ever  since  it  was  a  soul, 
was  a  kind  of  living  response  to,  and  a  latent  power 
over  the  Universe  within  man,  the  soul's  content 
was  the  Universe ;  but  the  soul's  environment  was 
God,  who  is  beyond  the  Universe.  The  soul's 
native  impression  from  this  environment  which  gave 
it  its  beauty  was  its  state  of  original  grace. 

Man  is  a  creation  of  God ;  but  his  moral  life  is 
a  joint-creation  by  God  and  Man.  A  Scheme  or 
Plan  of  this  joint-creation  was  the  Goal  of  History  ; 
and  this  Plan  was,  in  a  sense,  mathematically 
complete  in  the  beginning  in  human  nature,  just  as 


CHRISTIAN  MONISM  37 

the  whole  Table  of  all  the  Material  Elements  is  latent 
in  each  little  corpuscle  which,  by  a  mere  process  of 
multiplication  in  the  rhythmic  degrees  of  the  "  Periodic 
Law,"  makes  up  this  or  that  material  "element." 
This  Scheme  or  Plan  of  history  was  conformity 
to  that  divine  Model  of  movement  in  rest,  namely, 
the  Son  of  God.  The  overcoming  of  a  million 
obstructions  on  the  way  thither  towards  Him,  is 
what  colours  human  personalities  in  their  infinite 
possibilities    or   varieties  of  beauty  of  character. 

The  plot  of  every  life  was  the  Son  of  God, 
approachable  in  a  proper  and  unique  manner  by 
each  soul.  Hence  if  error  or  defection  came,  only 
He  could  disentangle  or  reverse  it  who  Himself 
was  the  sole  solution  of  the  plot. 

Sin  is  miscreation,  the  personal  refusal  to  create 
with  God,  and  the  infamy  of  abusing  His  own 
creative  power  to  contort  and  miscreate  His  "com- 
manded good."  Sin  contorts  God's  mathematics  of 
the  movement  and  single  moral  course  of  life.  For 
the  individual.  Sin  is  a  transcendent  evil  (besides 
affronting  God),  because  Sin  is  an  undoing  of  the 
Universe ;  and  any  possible  Moral  Ransom  can 
only  happen  by  a  real  making  up  of  the  Universe 
again. 

Now  if  Sin  were  only  an  error  and  not  a  mis- 
creation  or  a  misgenation,  there  had  been  need 
only  of  a  Prophet ;  not  of  a  Redeeming  God.  A 
miscreation  is  a  real  creation  made  by  a  human 
deflection  in  the  work  of  the  omnipotence  of  God. 
Humanity  thus  carries  with  it  the  substance  of 
its  Sin.  Truth  alone  cannot  redeem  mankind ; 
only   a  Force  equal  to   that  which   causes    Man    to 


38         THE  COSMIC  VISION  OF  CHRIST 

live  can  do  so.  The  thought  that  we  are  to  suffer 
in  consequence  of  an  original  or  hereditary  Sin 
which  we,  as  individuals,  have  not  committed,  need 
not  trouble  us  as  implying  the  endurance  of  a 
seemingly  unnecessary  evil ;  for  if  there  were  no 
transmission  of  the  substance  of  the  Past  Sin  of 
Humanity  into  the  Present,  those  who  lived  in 
a  former  Age  could  never  be  redeemed  in  a  later 
Age.  Hereditary  Sin  is  a  token  of  the  fact  that 
Humanity  is  of  one  substance  ;  and  that,  in  a  sense, 
the  effect  of  Redemption  is  in  all  or  none,  together, 
throughout  Place  and  Time. 

For  the  same  reason,  when  the  moment  of  Redemp- 
tion came,  there  could  be  no  sudden  transmutation  of 
Humanity  into  a  race  of  angels.  In  some  sphere  or 
other  each  individual  man  must  live  through  the  whole 
experience  of  Man  in  History.  Redemption  could 
be  looked  forward  to  as  the  linking  of  many  indi- 
viduals through  the  Redeemer  to  the  Goal  of  Spiritual 
History.  But  those  who  were  not  one  in  a  spiritual 
compassion  with  the  Redeemer,  had  to  undergo 
purgation.  They  had  to  suffer  with  Humanity,  until 
its  Goal  were  reached,  because  they  were  part  of 
Humanity,  and  could  not  be  saved  in  isolation  ; 
because  they  could  not  even  exist  apart  from  that 
with  which  they  were  inseverably  one. 


DIVINE  PERSONALITY  39 


X. 

Theology  relates  to  truths  which  are  often  far  more 
obvious  truths  than  is  generally  supposed.  What- 
ever Theology  may  have  said  about  Christ  as  Man 
or  God  must  be  interpreted  in  the  light  of  the 
general  truth  that  as  Man  He  was  as  we  are^  but 
that  His  Humanity  was  more  real  than  ours  is, 
and  His  Divinity  the  objective  realisation  of  our 
subjective  Hope. 

The  scholastic  teaching  about  the  perfect  know- 
ledge of  the  Human  Soul  of  Christ  is  founded  on  a 
simple  reality.  Christ,  by  perfect  moral  correspond- 
ence with  His  soul,  possessed  His  soul,  and  thus  also 
the  knowledge  which  is  of  the  soul.  The  Soul  itself 
reflects  the  Universe,  because  the  Soul  is  the  expres- 
sion of  the  Universe  devolved  within  us ;  and  all  this 
Universe  were  ours,  as  perfect  knowledge  and  perfect 
power,  had  we  but  the  moral  energy  to  take  it  to 
ourselves  and  use  it,  as  the  Kingdom  prepared  for  us 
in  the  "  foundation  of  the  world." 

When  now  we  ask  what  the  Divinity  of  Christ  is  in 
the  logic  of  the  Theistic  argument,  we  must  reach  the 
answer  by  a  process  of  excision  rather  than  by  a 
process  of  addition. 

Perfect  personality  is  a  model  form  of  living  move- 
ment in  perfect  simplicity,  reverberating  its  Past  in 
its  Present,  and  hence  without  a  past ;  and  forelaying 
its  Future,  and  hence  without  a  future  ;  but  holding  all 
things  in  a  substantial  Now.  Cut  away,  thus,  mentally, 
the  limitations  of  human  personality,  and  you  have  a 
conception    of    Divine    Personality.     In    any    case, 


40         THE  COSMIC  VISION  OF  CHRIST 

Divine  Personality  is  infinitely  responsive  to  human 
personality ;  for  the  human  is  planned  upon  the 
nature  of  the  divine. 

Christ,  however,  did  not  merely  "  act  the  man " ; 
He  was  infinitely  sincerely  man.  How,  then,  was 
His  personality  God?  Personality  from  this  view- 
point of  the  Spiritual  Oneness  of  Nature  contains  the 
movement  of  the  Universe  gathered  from  material 
reality  into  the  restful  simplicity  of  spiritual  reality. 
The  Spiritual  Creation  only  differs  from  the  Material 
Creation  in  so  far  as  the  Spiritual  Creation  is  a 
gathering  together  of  the  Material  Creation  into  a 
state  of  restfulness.  In  our  personalities  the  entire 
movement  of  the  World  is  reproduced  in  Memory, 
which  makes  the  Past  Present;  in  Understanding, 
which  vouches  for  the  present  actuality  of  all  around 
us ;  and  in  Will,  which  bears  us  towards  and  relates 
us  with  the  Future.  But  on  account  of  the  observed 
fact  that  reason,  the  note  of  personality,  coheres 
together  in  all  who  possess  reason,  and  is  thus 
founded  upon  a  single  reality,  it  is  right  to  say  that 
there  is  only  one  personality  strictly  speaking  within 
the  universe,  namely,  that  Spiritual  Reality  which  is 
the  Spring  of  the  World's  energies,  and  which  im- 
presses itself  as  the  Reason  of  God  upon  the  whole 
Life  and  Movement  of  the  Creation. 

Now,  Christ's  divine  Personality  was  this  model 
divine  Movement  towards  Rest  in  the  Universe  and 
in  Human  History.  His  divine  Consciousness,  there- 
fore, was  no  conflicting  movement  to  His  human 
Consciousness,  itself  more  restfully  reposeful  in 
eternity  than  any  mere  human  consciousness  ever 
could  have  been.     What  has  been  called  the  Kenosis, 


CHRISTOLOGY  41 

or  the  reputed  ignorance  of  Christ  as  Man,  is  really 
an  evidence  of  the  naturalness  of  the  flow  of  Christ's 
human  Reason  within,  and  unto,  the  divine  forms  of 
knowledge  which  were  embodied  in  Him  as  the 
Reason  of  God.  His  human  Reason  followed  its 
essential  way  through  the  limitations  of  the  Mind  of 
the  Epoch  ;  but  Christ's  divine  Reason,  ruling  already 
in  the  very  structure  of  Man,  and  in  every  particle  of 
being  in  the  Universe,  was  so  possessed  by  Christ, 
that  it  was  the  very  person  or  inner  self  of  Christ. 
Therefore  this  divine  Reason  controlled  in  inner 
spontaneity  that  which  in  Christ's  human  Reason 
was  taken  from  the  Mind  of  the  Time,  to  signify 
some  truth  beyond  the  reach  of  this  Mind  of  the 
Time. 

The  Creed  says  that  Christ  was  perfect  God  and 
perfect  Man,  and  that  He  was  gifted  with  a  rational 
soul.  Unless  then  we  destroy  the  very  nature  of 
Reason,  which  is  the  movement  of  the  understanding 
from  unknown  truth,  through  correct  premises  to 
known  truth,  Christ  Himself,  as  Man,  daily  learned 
new  truths  in  accordance  with  that  divine  decree 
which  is  from  the  very  Reason  of  the  Universe. 
Christ's  human  Reason  concurred  with  His  divine 
Reason  by  the  abundance  of  its  power,  and  not  by 
artifice.  This  divine  Reason  was  itself  the  gracious 
Reality  of  the  Reason  which  sustains  everything 
which  is ;  and  therefore  His  Hypostatic  Union 
brought  Christ  nearer  to  the  Heart  of  Nature  than 
any  other  individual  in  human  history  ever  approached 
thereto. 


42         THE  COSMIC  VISION  OF  CHRIST 


XL 

Nature  is  the  Shadow  of  the  Substance  of  the  Grace  of 
God.  All  God's  ways  are  not  after  the  manner  of 
man-invented  artifice^  but  all  rhy^ne  together  in 
concord^  Nature  concurring  with  Grace  and  Grace 
with  Nature^  except  that  Grace  alone  is  the 
Substantial  World. 

The  Incarnation  is  more  easily  thinkable  by  aid 
of  the  inspired  prophetic  consciousness  of  an 
universal  Sovereignty  of  God.  This  human  con- 
sciousness of  a  possible  Reign  of  Eternal  Justice  in 
the  World  was  a  worthy  sphere  of  operation  of  the 
mental  term  of  the  person  of  Christ,  just  as  His 
human  heredity  (nature)  was  a  worthy  sphere  of 
the  operation  of  the  moral  term. 

Granted  this  "prepared  place"  for  the  Incarnation, 
and  take  away  the  chance  of  human  imperfect 
personality  entering,  then  the  Model  Personality, 
namely,  the  Divine  Personality,  can  easily  be  thought 
of  as  entering  there  instead  of  human  personality. 

This  Personality  is  all-knowing  and  all-mighty,  not 
as  man  might  conceive  of  omniscience  and  omni- 
potence, but  in  that  gracious  life-likeness  in  which 
God  may  be  trusted  to  manifest  them.  The  divine 
Science  and  Power  come  because  this  Personality  is 
literally  the  Modelling  Movement  of  the  Cosmos. 
This  Science,  however,  is  not  a  graceless  conscious- 
ness of  alien  things  and  events ;  no  more  than  this 
Power  is  a  Disruptive  Force.  Because  Christ  is 
native  to  the  divine  Scheme  of  Things,  being 
Himself  the   incarnate   divine   Scheme    of    Things, 


REALITY  OF  THOUGHT  43 

He  IS  more  with  the  movement  of  the  Universe 
than  any  other  being  in  the  Universe.  His  divine 
Science  is  His  feeling  of  the  Goal  of  the  Universe  in 
every  incident  of  His  earthly  Life  within  the  Universe. 
His  divine  Power  is  the  power  of  the  Divine  Scheme 
to  control  the  Human  Scheme  and  "  be  cleared  when 
it  is  judged." 

xn. 

Theism  makes  the  best  Thoughts  of  Man  through  Christ 
the  centre  upon  whicJi  the  whole  of  Physical 
Reality  converges. 

Theism  is  not  an  attempt  to  constrain  the  infinite 
realities  of  God  and  man  within  arbitrary  intellectual 
systems  of  Thought.  It  is  the  reasonable  view  of  the 
Universe  to  take,  to  say  that  God  chooses  the 
Thought  of  Man  as  the  line  of,  the  light  of,  His  New 
Creation,  and  therefore  that  all  essential  Human 
Thoughts  concur  with  Divine  Realities,  through 
Christ. 

If  Christ  rose  again  from  the  Dead  in  hearts  and 
souls,  as  the  Idealist  so  often  tells  us,  He  also 
necessarily  arose  again,  the  Theist  adds,  in  physical 
fact ;  because  physical  facts  are  necessarily  part 
and  parcel  of  supreme  soul  facts.  Moreover,  when 
Christ  ascended  into  Heaven,  that  Heaven,  if,  as  we 
may  suppose,  it  was  within  His  human  soul,  was  no 
unreal  or  unobjective  place.  Rather,  where  Christ 
is,  there  is  the  only  real  and  objective  place.  Christ's 
human  soul  is  the  converted  Universe,  the  Universe 
converted  within  His  personal  scheme  of  rest.  Our 
souls    are   virtual    replicas    of    the    Universe;    but 


44         THE  COSMIC  VISION  OF  CHRIST 

without  Him,  on  account  of  Sin,  they  could  not 
endure  for  ever.  Only  in  Him  is  Mankind  gathered 
in  one;  and  through  Him  Man  will  live  while  He 
lives,  though  outside  the  Body  and  Soul  of  Christ, 
called  also  the  Church  of  Christ,  no  body  nor  soul  of 
man  can  ever  live  onwards  and  endure. 


XIII. 

Theism  being  a  rational  theory  about  the  substantial 
reality  of  religious  truths  those  who  approach  faith 
in  Christ  with  a  right  theistic  preparation  fina 
Him  to  be  as  real  to  thejfi  as  the  Apostles  found 
Him  in  their  own  Age, 

I  ask  for  a  fellowship  of  Christians  who  will  take 
at  its  precise  value  the  teaching  which  they  uphold. 
The  daily  life  of  Christians  is  the  sacramental  life  of 
the  Church.  How  little  the  Sacraments  may  mean 
to  individuals,  all  the  world  knows ;  how  much  they 
may  mean  in  the  sacrament  of  spiritual  restitution  to 
us  of  an  apostolic  consciousness  of  Christ  living  on 
the  earth,  it  is  given  to  no  one  to  know. 

The  Goal  of  the  World's  History,  which  is  the 
"  Coming  again  of  the  Son  of  Man  "  (alluded  to  in  the 
Prayer  of  Consecration  as  our  being  made  "  partakers 
of  His  most  blessed  Body  and  Blood  "),  is  all  prefigured 
to  the  world  in  that  Holy  Sacrament  in  which,  in  a 
spiritual  manner,  the  Second  Advent  is  fulfilled  in 
us. 

The  main  value  of  Theism  is  that  its  acceptance 
intellectually  obliges  everyone  to  put  a  scientific 
substantiality  into  their  words.     It  obliges  people,  in 


MENTAL  REDEMPTION  45 

other  words,  to  mean  precisely  what  they  say. 
Theism  teaches  not  one  jot  or  tittle  of  anything 
which  is  doctrinally  new.  Its  aim  is  spiritually  to 
revolutionise  humanity  through  teaching  a  true 
appreciation  of  what  it  has  long  since  possessed.  In 
a  secondary  sense,  however,  all  who  receive  Christ 
with  the  apostolic  consciousness  of  the  presence  of 
Christ,  will  become  His  apostles  and  His  messengers 
in  all  the  highways  and  byways  of  the  world ;  and 
in  this  conservative  sense  there  will  be  a  new  or 
renewed  dispensation  of  the  Holy  Ghost. 


XIV. 

The  Agony  in  the  Garden  relates  to  an  enduring 
dispensation  of  God  in  spiritual  history^  whereby 
a  Thought-Ransom  precedes  the  actual  divine 
accomplishment  of  Redemption.  If  each  particle 
in  the  Creation  is  represented  in  every  otJier particle ^ 
so  is  each  soul  represented  in  every  other  soul^ 
and  hence  Christ's  mental  Co7iflict  with  Sin 
embraced  every  soul,  and,  in  a  certain  sense,  is  ever 
going  on. 

The  Agony  in  the  Garden  may  be  taken  as  the 
Mental  Redemption  of  Mankind,  which  it  would  be 
difficult  for  the  exponents  of  mere  Idealism  to  prove 
was  not  enough.  As  Prophet  of  Humanity,  Christ 
grappled  with  Sin  and  all  its  effects  at  Gethsemane ; 
and  mentally  saw  through  to  an  eternal  release. 
All  souls  have  a  real  presence  in  each  soul,  but  only 
Christ,  by  divine  energy,  so   possessed    His  human 


46         THE  COSMIC  VISION  OF  CHRIST 

soul  that  He  could  meet  and  see  and  converse  there 
with  every  human  soul.  In  the  soul  of  Christ  was 
therefore  present  the  substance  of  all  the  souls  of 
mankind.  In  His  state  of  agony  and  mental  anguish 
in  the  Garden,  Christ  comprehended  the  dark  outlines 
and  various  shades  of  all  the  fearful  miscreation  which 
had  come  to  Him  in  lieu  of  the  beauty  of  the  joint- 
creation  between  Man  and  God,  the  moral  and  real 
life  in  that  Covenant  whereby  man  moves  towards 
his  eternity  concurrently  with  God.  Into  the  place 
of  all  this  evil  substance  or  miscreation,  the  Redeemer 
devoted  Himself,  first,  to  know  how  each  sinner 
might  be  sympathetically  interpreted  as  a  subject 
for  his  Redeeming  Love.  There  is  an  uncertain 
psychic  law  whereby  a  friend,  at  the  moment  of  his 
death,  is  said  to  enter  in  a  real  presence  within  our 
souls.  Be  that  as  it  may,  there  is  a  very  certain  law 
whereby  the  Redeemer  began  to  be  present  to  the 
conscience  of  all  Humanity  by  His  death,  and  from 
the  moment  of  His  death. 

By  His  agony  in  the  Garden,  Christ  had  brought 
all  Suffering  Humanity  to  Himself  within  His  soul. 
By  His  passion  and  death.  He  "  crossed  over,"  in 
His  substantial  presence,  to  all  mankind.  From 
henceforth  the  Church  of  Christ  is  this  living 
persistence  of  the  Body  and  the  Soul  of  Christ  in 
the  body  and  soul  of  Humanity.  Christ  now 
remodels  Humanity  in  the  beauty  of  Grace,  and 
composes  it  in  rest;  as  He  has  already  moulded 
the  movement  in  the  Universe  in  the  beauty  of 
Nature.  Because  also  He  is  Lord  of  both  the 
Universe  and  of  Humanity,  in  His  Church  He  is 
remodelling    and    reforming     both    Man,    and    the 


THE  OLD  AND  NEW  CREATION         47 

Universe    itself,    into    the     likeness    of    the     New 
Jerusalem. 

XV. 

All  Science  is  making  zvay  for  such  a  clear  definition 
of  the  meaning  of  the  Reason  of  God  which  was 
Incarnate  in  Christy  that  the  same  Science  will 
shoiv  forth  His  fudgment  on  the  Living  and  the 
Dead. 

John,  the  Apostle,  saw  Christ's  place  in  the  Uni- 
verse by  intuition.  The  movement  of  knowledge  in 
history  is  towards  the  recovery  of  the  Apostolic 
Consciousness  of  Christ  in  a  didactic  way.  If  Coper- 
nicus and  Galileo  discovered  the  place  of  the  earth 
in  the  stellar  universe,  that  was  one  stage  towards 
discovering  Bethlehem  in  the  midst  of  the  Stars.  If 
Newton  discovered  the  cosmic  laws  of  motion,  he 
discovered  the  movement  in  the  world  impressed  on 
it  by  the  living  Plan  of  movement  which  is  the 
Person  of  Christ. 

If  Joule  and  others  discovered  the  law  of  the  Con- 
servation of  Energy,  they  discovered  part  of  the 
scheme  which  feeds  the  New  Creation. 

If  Darwin  discovered  Evolution,  and  if  Spencer 
synthesed  the  truth  of  Nature  as  the  knowledge  of  the 
Movement  of  Universal  Energy  in  degrees  of  integra- 
tion, this  Evolution  was  directed  by  the  Mathematical 
Models  of  energy  which  we  now  know  predetermine 
the  nature  of  life  ;  also  was  it  directed  by  what  is 
called  the  Periodic  Law,  which,  existing  in  itself  in 
Reason  only,  yet  preordains  the  material  Elements 
in  every  world  of  Stars. 


48         THE  COSMIC  VISION  OF  CHRIST 

Now  these  Models  of  Movement  in  Energy,  before 
they  exist  in  actual  energy  are  the  expression  of  the 
Reason  of  God. 

Natural  Selection  is  the  destruction  of  Movements 
which  do  not  concur  with  God's  Rule  and  Numbers 
in  the  Elements,  and  with  God's  requirements  from 
the  Animal  World. 

The  destructive  terrors  of  Natural  Selection  are  a 
foreboding  of  the  Judgment  of  this  Reason  of  God, 
when  It  shall  appear  before  all  men  to  give  the 
Freehold  of  Its  sovereignty  to  the  Good,  and  deprive 
the  Wicked  of  any  place  within  Its  Book  of  Life. 


XVI. 

All  Fait h^  through  Christ,  is  the  beginning  of  the 
Resurrection. 

What  is  Faith  ? 

Faith  is  the  revulsion  of  humanity  against  death, 
and  the  attempt  to  live  without  death. 

Life  revolts  from  death,  or  it  would  not  be  life. 
Life  in  man  revolts  from  death  in  its  transcendent 
environment ;  in  all  that  its  reason  or  conscience 
knows. 

But  this  revolt  is  ineffectual  unless  a  Power  which 
is  Lord  of  Life  and  Death  impels  the  revulsion 
against  Death  with  a  superhuman  strength  which  our 
ever-dying  life  itself  is  incapable  of.  Unless  Christ 
has  risen  from  the  dead,  then  our  faith  is  vain.  But 
because  He  has  risen.  He  has  sanctioned  the  entire 
faith  of  the  Human  Race. 

All  faith,  then,  in  a  sense,  is  faith  in  Christ,  be  it 


FAITH  49 

near  or  far ;  and  all  faith  in  Christ  is  then,  too,  an 
initial  rising  from  the  dead. 

Every  moment  of  our  lives,  of  ourselves,  we  are 
dying  and  spending  our  lives  beyond  the  power  of 
recovery  by  aid  of  any  principle  of  strength  within 
us.  Yet  Faith  is  the  daily  and  hourly  recovery  from 
death,  by  aid  from  a  Power  which  is  greater  than 
Death. 

Faith  takes  every  action  which  it  inspires,  and 
makes  it  deathless.  Where  Nature  scatters  Life, 
Faith  gathers  and  assumes  Life. 

Faith  is  the  power  to  give  or  direct  our  lives  in  the 
direction  of  One  who  is  capable  of  accepting  the 
gift. 

On  account  of  what  He  will  do  in  the  days  before 
us  even  though  our  actions  be  inglorious,  yet  is  man- 
kind through  Christ  justified  by  faith  alone,  and  not 
by  the  works  of  man. 


xvn. 

Our  very  subjectivities^  such  as  our  living  memories  of 
deceased  persons^  are  the  definite  earthly  resting- 
place  of  the  New  Creation. 

Perducant  te  in  civitateni  sanctam,  novam  ferusalem. 

Comte  could  not  imagine  how  the  deceased  heroes 
of  Humanity  could  possess  anything  more  than  a 
subjective  presence  in  the  memories  of  those  who 
cherished  them.  But,  granted  even  that,  and  if  the 
force  value  of  identity  is  conceivable  as  being  re- 
enacted  in  the  strange  and  infinite  subjective 
universe,  I  do  not  see  why  we  should  not  say  that 

G 


60         THE  COSMIC  VISION  OF  CHRIST 

memories  of  the  deceased  within  us  contain  the  real 
presences  of  the  deceased. 

May  not  "  Mediumship  "  and  "  Hypnotism  "  be  a 
disordered  application  of  a  divine  law  which,  itself,  is 
orderly,  creative,  and  purposive?  If  the  subject  be 
argued  out  to  a  finish  on  the  theistic  theory  of  energy 
as  God's  energy,  added  to  that  of  psychological 
investigation,  the  living  may,  it  is  conceivable,  first  of 
all  during  life,  control  the  thought  of  themselves  in 
other  persons,  though  rather  through  the  modelling 
force  that  all  realities  have  over  ideas,  than  in  any 
mysterious  manner.  When,  however,  death  occurs, 
there  is  a  snapping  of  this  control,  and  in  that  case 
the  memory  of  the  deceased  lives  by  itself;  a  truth 
confirmed  by  the  authority  of  visions  at  the  moment 
of  decease,  and  of  the  reputed  "spirit  mediums"  who 
accept  control  from  the  subjective  memories  of  other 
persons. 

In  Frederick  Myers'  great  work  on  The  Survival  of 
Human  Personality  after  Bodily  Deaths  there  is 
abundant  evidence  to  prove  the  existence  of  quasi- 
mechanical  reverberances  of  memories  of  deceased 
persons ;  proof,  in  other  words,  of  the  existence  of 
everything  about  human  survival  except  the  one  thing, 
namely,  the  moral  substantiality  of  departed  persons. 
At  least,  however,  Myers  convincingly  disproves 
Comte's  hypothesis  that  memories  of  the  dead  are 
less  than  real  energies  or  things. 

Who  shall  say  that  these  very  mechanical  reverber- 
ances of  the  dead  are  not,  in  a  sense,  appertaining  to 
those  "  graves  "  or  "  monuments  "  in  which  departed 
personalities  rest,  until  they  shall  all  "  hear  the  voice 
of  the  Son  of  God  and  live  "  again  ? 


THE  "PAROUSIA"  51 

Such  is  the  least  of  hopes ;  but  is  not  the  greatest 
of  hopes,  the  hope  that  all  the  dead  who  die  in  Christ 
are  slowly  filled  with  the  transcendent  moral,  and 
hence  also  cosmic  energy  of  the  Son  of  God,  and 
there  and  then  likewise  begin  to  abide  in  Him  ? 

And  if  each  man  has  a  "  Subliminal  Self,"  which  is 
a  universe  itself  in  miniature,  may  not  the  mighty 
single  mind  of  the  Church  of  God  possess,  in  an 
analogous  manner,  a  mighty  universe  of  its  own, 
which,  by  the  creative  energy  of  God,  is  fashioned 
without  hands  into  the  New  Jerusalem  ? 


xvin. 

The  reason  why  there  fuust  be  a  Final  Apparition  or 
Judgment ;  called  in  the  New  Testament^  the 
"  Parousial'  or  Last  Things. 

To  the  Theist,  all  things  are  believed  to  exist  in 
personal  form  ;  that  is,  he  sees  that  the  movement 
of  cosmic  Energy  and  Life,  did  it  reach  the  point 
towards  which  it  tended,  would  either  terminate 
in  personality  or  express  personality.  The  Christian 
calls  this  personal  proportion  of  the  Universe  the 
Reason  of  God,  and  says  that  it  was  incarnate  in 
Christ. 

Christ,  in  His  apocalyptic  or  ultimate  place  in 
History,  belongs  to  the  Future,  because  He  is  an 
incarnation  of  this  eternally  modelling  movement 
in  history.  In  so  far  as  anything  is  spiritually 
durable,  it  is  so  because  He  is  the  actual  movement  in 
it,  as  in  all  things,  towards  their  final  state  of  rest. 
He  has  modelled  all  life  and  shaped  it  towards  peace. 


52         THE  COSMIC  VISION  OF  CHRIST 

if  ever  it  is  to  reach  peace ;  nor  can  any  World, 
nor  Life,  nor  Being  within  the  World,  enter  upon 
its  rest  until  it  has  come  to  its  rest  in  Him. 
Therefore  Spiritual  History  is  a  struggle  of  all 
souls  to  reach  His  peace. 

Christ  will  appear  in  the  World  as  Judge,  because 
He  is  one  with  the  Reason  of  God  in  the  Universe ; 
and  this  Reason  of  God,  from  whose  rule  no  particle 
of  being  in  the  World  can  get  away,  is  destined, 
of  its  very  nature,  to  come  through  with  all  its  work 
in  the  Universe,  and  be  manifested  through  all  the 
Wide  World  when  this  work  is  done. 


XIX. 

Heaven  is  begotten  in  our  inner  World  of  Thought^ 
Hope,  Love^  Desire ;  all  of  which  we  iinagine 
are  a  Shadow-Land^  until  the  Spirit  through 
the  Word  of  God  causes  them  to  be  eternally  real 
and  true. 

Heaven  simply  means  that  our  inner  universe  of 
thought,  vision,  dream,  hope,  aspiration,  prophecy, 
desire,  expectation,  possesses  a  solemn  and  substantial 
reality  in  the  Heart  and  Mind  of  God. 

Saintliness  does  but  replace  a  substantial  for  an 
unsubstantial  Universe ;  or  at  least  it  replaces 
one  for  an  Universe  which  is  unsubstantial  for 
us. 

Prayer  moves  the  mountain  forces  of  the  Universe 
in  our  inner  control  of  them  into  the  sphere  of 
the  sovereign  rule  of  Christ  as  God  and  Man. 

By    Christ    as    the   Reason    of    God,   all    things 


THE  iNEW  CREATION  53 

"  consist "  and  are  what  they  are  in  Nature  ;  by 
Christ  as  God  and  Man,  all  things  "  consist "  and 
are  gathered  in  one  for  Man  in  Grace. 

This  is  possible  only  because  having  once  agreed 
together  in  the  Reason,  the  Word  of  God;  if 
they  are  brought  together  again  by  the  Word  made 
Flesh  for  Man,  the  operation  whereby  this  is  done 
is  natively  proper  to  the  One  who  so  brings  it 
to  pass.  The  New  Creation  is  identically  the  same 
work  in  power,  authority,  control,  and  sovereignty, 
as  the  Old  Creation ;  and  the  Creation  of  an 
Universe  for  Man,  namely  Heaven,  is  work  of  the 
same  Workman,  as  is  all  the  process  of  the  unfolding 
of  the  Natural  Universe. 

If  Christ  did  not  model  and  control  Nature,  He 
could  not  model  and  control  Grace.  But  by  the 
Incarnation  He  has  brought  His  controlling  power 
over  the  Universe  into  the  Heart  of  Man ;  and 
through  His  Church,  and  through  His  Grace,  He 
models  and  controls  the  Universe  within  the  Heart 
to  make  it  a  Heaven,  that  is  a  reality  for  Ever. 


XX. 

The  Dead  are  living  with  the  Living  because  all  things 
consist  and  persist  together  in  Christ. 

Theism  teaches  that  all  worlds  are  God's  World, 
all  strengths  are  God's  Strength;  all  life  is  God's 
possession  ;  all  interrelations  of  things  are  mediated 
through  Him ;  and  all  manifoldness  is  one  in  Him. 
Theism  teaches  that  each  human  life  is  represented 
in  every  other  human  life,  as  indeed  each  material 


54         THE  COSMIC  VISION  OF  CHRIST 

particle  is  represented  in  every  other  material  particle 
of  the  Universe.  Theism  teaches  that  each  soul 
thus  possesses  a  living  presence  of  all  humanity 
within  itself 

A  person  whom  we  know,  on  dying,  still  lives  in  a 
real  presence  within  us  through  a  mysterious  soul- 
reverberance.  The  same  soul-reverberance  resounds 
from  all  the  dead  whom  we  have  not  known,  through 
the  dead  we  have  known,  and  extending  backwards 
to  others  ever  since  the  beginning  of  the  world.  If 
our  moral  energies  were  perfect  and  divine,  we  could 
find  all  humanity,  past,  present,  and  to  come,  within 
us.  And  they  would  not  be  pictures  of  other 
persons,  but  real  presences  of  other  persons.  If  this 
be  not  true,  then  Theism,  the  view  which  links  all  past 
existences  together  in  real  existences  in  the  present, 
is  totally  false  ;  and  there  could  be  no  basis  for  the 
Redemption.  Coming  as  Redemption  did  before  the 
goal  of  history  had  been  reached,  it  redirected  the 
great  Communion  of  all  humanity  towards  restfulness 
in  God.  Yet  this  divine  consolidation,  the  Scriptural 
Restitution  of  all  things,  must  remain  in  conceal- 
ment in  what  is  called  the  Church,  until,  in  the  Pauline 
phraseology,  the  times  of  the  nations  shall  have  been 
fulfilled. 

Redemption  wrought  a  consolidarity  of  all  the 
fortunes  and  lives  of  humanity  past,  present,  and  to 
come,  gathering  together  what  was  forgotten, 
encircling  in  its  living  arms  all  present  lives,  and 
joining  all  souls,  until  that  Future  when  the  self- 
consciousness  of  all  humanity  shall  have  grown 
complete. 

At  a  certain  moment  of  history  the  civilised  nations 


"THE  RESTITUTION^^  55 

are  sure  to  come  to  Christ ;  when  His  own  moral 
energy  shall  have  entered  into  every  soul ;  when,  in 
communion  with  all  humanity,  He  shall  have  relived 
in  every  human  life,  remoulding  men  unto  the  likeness 
of  each  man's  proper  conscience,  and  each  man's 
proper  soul — unto  which  likeness  no  one  elsewhere 
could  have  attained — saving  in  this  world,  purifying 
and  enlightening  in  the  underworld. 


PART    III 

THE  CHURCH;  OR,  THE  KEEPING 

OF  THE  KING'S  LIKENESS  AND 

IMPRESSION 


H 


THE  CHURCH;  OR,  THE  KEEPING 

OF  THE  KING'S  LIKENESS  AND 

IMPRESSION 

"The  Anointing  which  ye  have  received  of  Him  abideth  in 
you,  and  ye  need  not  that  any  man  teach  you,  but  as  the  same 
Anointing  teacheth  you  of  all  things,  and  is  Truth,  and  is  no 
lie  ;  and  even  as  it  hath  taught  you,  ye  shall  abide  in  Him." — 
St  John. 

I. 

Religion  is  a  cosmic  movement  of  the  Universe  towards 
God.  While  Ethics  and  Morality  are  the 
inexorable  conditions,  yet  conduct^  of  itself  with- 
out  the  recreative  energy  of  Religion,  yields  no 
substantial  change  over  the  body  and  soul  of  Man. 

If  religion  were  only  ethics,  then  the  mere  publication 
of  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount  throughout  the  world, 
without  the  Coming  of  the  Holy  Ghost  on  the 
Disciples,  would  be  the  whole  of  the  Religion  of  Christ. 
The  Church  Catholic  has  ever  been  a  radical  contra- 
diction to  this  view.  The  Church  is  neither  a 
system  of  sound  Economics  nor  a  mere  Society  or 
club  for  the  promotion  of  goodness.  Sound  Eco- 
nomics and  sound  Social  Ethics  are  the  two  stern 
and  inexorable  conditions  of  the  Church's  triumph  in 
the  world  ;  but  they  do  not  make  up  the  fact  of  its  life. 

59 


60  THE  CHURCH 

The  Church  of  Christ  is  either  a  power  integrating 
and  immortalising  man,  and  using  Economics 
and  Ethics  as  a  means  to  this  sovereign  end ;  or 
its  claim  to  be  supernatural  has  no  justification. 

In  the  scheme  of  Christian  evidences,  firstly,  the 
fact  that  the  Creation  can  supply  the  wants  of  man  is 
necessarily  bound  up  with  the  truth  that  there  is  a 
God  who  is  Father  to  men.  And  after  this  the  Life 
of  Christ  may  reveal  and  demonstrate  the  social 
reality  of  the  Brotherhood  of  Men.  But,  in  fine, 
unless  a  new  power  had  now  been  brought  into 
the  world  through  Christ,  called  in  Theology  the 
Holy  Ghost,  and  had  revealed  Itself  in  a  God- 
made  solidarity  of  Mankind,  then  the  evidences  for 
Catholicity  would  have  broken  down.  For  there 
can  be  no  Divine,  or  Catholic,  Church  which  is  not 
in  effect  a  Transcendent  Communion  of  all  the 
peoples,  races,  tongues,  religions,  civic  ideals,  social 
aspirations  of  the  whole  of  mankind,  sealed  in  a  New 
and  Eternal  Covenant  which  shall  bring  down 
Heaven  to  reign  on  Earth  and  transform  the  Earth 
itself  into  a  Social  Paradise. 


II. 

The  Church  is  the  Angela  or  Messenger,  through  which 
the  Son  of  God  constantly  visits  Men  and  visits 

Nations. 

To  Christians,  it  is  the  most  interesting  fact  in 
current  history  that  Christ  dwells  in  the  world  in  an 
ever-living  communion  amid  Human  Society,  and 
that  He  is  restless  in  His  missionary  enterprise  until 


CHRIST  IN  THE  CHURCH  61 

He  has  sweetly  won  by  His  influence  and  power  every 
soul  and  every  nation.  To  bring  comfort  and  power 
to  all  men,  Christ  has  sent  His  Angel-Church  to 
bring  His  Power  in  contact  with  His  World,  to  leaven 
all  the  World  with  the  ferment  of  the  Holy  Passover 
of  all  His  Creation  unto  God. 

He  brings  His  Church  into  well-defined  relationship 
with  Human  Life  and  Society,  and  with  the  environ- 
ment of  all  the  Universe.  Through  His  Church, 
Christ  lives  in  intimate  union  with  Humanity  which 
is  twice  His  own,  and  with  the  Cosmic  Life  which 
belonged  to  Him  from  the  beginning,  since  He  is  one 
with  the  Reason  of  God.  This  Holy  Reason  of  the 
Universe  most  appropriately  uses  His  sensible 
Universe  wherewith  to  communicate  His  Divine 
Mysteries  to  Men. 

In  His  Church,  Christ  fulfils  human  aspiration  and 
desire  through  the  multitude  and  efficacy  of  His  gifts. 
There  is  no  human  problem  which  He  has  not  taken 
to  Himself  power  to  solve,  nor  human  anxiety  which 
He  is  not  compassionate  enough  to  allay.  There  is 
no  truth  of  which  He  is  not  the  interpretation,  no 
Goodness  with  which  His  Heart  does  not  agree,  no 
Social  Justice  in  humanity  whose  sword  it  is  not  His 
to  wield.  He  is  attracted  to  all  mankind  in  His 
Church's  missionary  enterprise,  ever  willing  and  ready 
to  expand  with  His  Church.  His  Life  is  the 
Sovereign  Mission  of  God  to  men  ;  He  is  Beauty  to  all 
their  vision ;  a  Divine  Reason  speaking  to  human 
reason  ;  a  Heart  revealing  truths  to  hearts.  Christ 
in  His  Church  is  the  Compliment  to  the  Creation  of 
God,  the  final  harvest  of  all  that  is  sown  on  earth 
and  He  is  ready  during  the  course  of  history  to  offer 


62  THE  CHURCH 

through  Himself  the  gifts   of  all  the  World  to  the 
Father  and  Creator  from  whom  they  all  descended. 


in. 

When  in  the  ordinary  course  of  history  new  vistas  are 
breaking  upon  the  spiritual  eyesight  of  men^  it  is 
then  the  moment  when  the  Church  should  send 
forth  her  teachers  to  interpret  these  vistas. 

A  great  object  of  the  Church  as  an  educational 
body  is  to  train  individuals  in  the  major  prophetic 
stamp  of  a  St  Paul  or  a  St  Francis.  The  immediate 
chances  of  her  success  depend  upon  her  taking  into 
her  life  characters  of  the  human  immortality  of 
Isaiah,  Jeremiah,  St  Paul,  St  Augustine,  or  St  Francis. 
Since  these  individuals  may  only  be  looked  for  in 
crucial  periods  of  history,  the  destinies  of  the 
Church  of  God  are  conditioned  very  straitly  by  the 
necessities  of  place,  time,  and  the  growth  of  the 
world.  The  term  of  our  present  era  will  probably  be 
the  call  of  many  all-sympathetic  men  within  the 
bosom  of  the  Church,  and  their  new  mission  will  lie 
in  working  with  the  Church  for  the  ingathering  of  the 
world.  In  that  day  we  may  expect  the  miracle  of 
Pentecost  to  be  renewed,  and  the  Church  to  renew 
her  triumphs  of  the  Apostolic  Age.  These  new 
Apostles  will  not  be  separators  from  the  Church,  but 
thorough  and  entire  co-operators  with  the  Church, 
and  through  them  the  divisions  and  schisms  of  the 
Churches  will  probably  be  healed. 


CHURCH  HISTORY  63 


IV. 


Church  History  is  the  direction  and  convergence  of  the 
Universe  towards  seeing  the  Face  of  Christy  and 
imploriiig  therefrom  perpetual  light  and  blessing. 

The  Impression  of  the  Spirit  of  Christ  came  to 
St  Paul  through  St  Stephen,  and  indirectly  through 
the  original  witnesses,  the  Apostles  and  Disciples  of 
Christ.  Theistically  speaking,  the  control  of  St  Paul 
by  the  Spirit  of  Christ  was  a  spiritual  Second  Advent 
of  Christ.  The  problem,  at  least  of  the  Church,  is 
clearly  exemplified  in  the  instance  of  St  Paul,  because 
the  vivid  human  reality  of  the  Impression  which 
belonged  to  those  who  had  seen  Christ,  and  is 
accurately  preserved  in  the  first  three  gospels  was 
necessarily  absent  from  St  Paul,  who,  as  he  himself 
said,  only  sought  for  and  found,  the  Crucified,  and 
Risen,  and  Heavenly  Christ. 

Herein  the  meaning  of  the  probationary  or  sacra- 
mental period  of  Church  History  is  marked  for  its 
goal.  The  Church  must,  at  all  hazards,  retain  the 
whole  Impression  of  the  person  of  Christ,  until  the 
period  when  the  Church  can  totally  reconstruct  in 
living  consciousness  the  earthly  Christ.  Church 
History  is  therefore  a  definite  movement  of  mankind 
towards  the  repossession  of  the  Apostolic  Conscious- 
ness of  Christ.  While  the  Kenans  and  other 
"  artists  "  of  the  Gospel  were  totally  at  fault  in  their 
idealisations  of  Christ  in  Galilee ;  in  spite  of  them- 
selves, they  were,  nevertheless,  instruments  of  a 
reconstruction  of  the  Apostolic  Consciousness. 

No  one  can  say  when  the  simple  realism  of  that 


64  THE  CHURCH 

Apostolic  Consciousness  of  our  Saviour  will  have 
reached  completion.  The  fact,  at  least,  that  there 
was  such  a  necessary  period  of  History  to  be  faced,  in 
which  the  ever-present  Christ  could  not  be  conceived 
of  with  the  whole  apostolic  consciousness,  is  a  justifi- 
cation of  all  the  intervening  events  of  Church  History. 
There  is  no  need  for  explaining,  or  explaining  away, 
the  faith  and  sorrows  of  the  Saints  and  of  all  the 
Church  of  God.  But  there  is  need  to  affirm  con- 
clusively that  their  faith  in  Christ,  and  in  the  Church, 
was  true  in  an  accuracy  which  was  scientific  and 
absolute. 

We  can  condone  with  the  great  wounds  and 
schisms  of  the  Church,  if  God  has  chosen  them  as 
the  means  through  which  mankind  shall  repossess 
the  blessed  face  of  Christ,  even  as  the  Apostles  were 
wont  to  see  His  face. 


As  with  the  Apostles  of  Christ,  so  in  the  Apostle- 
Churches  of  Christy  there  are  special  characters 
related  to  the  special  destiny  of  the  Churches  in 
the  Final  City  of  God,  The  Holy  Ghost  has 
segregated  and  trained  the  Anglican  Church 
not  to  contradict  the  Roman  or  other  Churches, 
but  to  supplement  the  other  Chmxhes  as  St  Paul 
supplemented  Peter  and  the  original  Twelve. 

The  Historic  Church  in  England  is,  in  many 
senses,  the  Church  of  the  Great  Apostle  of  the 
Gentiles. 

The  Apostles  of  the  Lamb,  whose  names  are 
embedded  in   the  foundations  of  the  Final  City  of 


THE  ANGLICAN  CHURCH  65 

God,  are  a  Prophecy  and  a  permanent  Life-Likeness 
to,  the  procession  of  the  Churches  of  the  Apostolic 
Succession  from  Christ  during  history. 

Of  the  essential  "  Peter,"  which  is  the  Church  of 
Rome,  let  those  who  are  of  the  Communion  of  Peter 
speak  for  themselves. 

Besides  Peter  and  others  of  the  Twelve,  there 
was  an  Apostle  who  was  called  by  the  Holy  Ghost 
later  than  the  rest  of  the  Apostles  ;  the  manner 
of  whose  calling  was  proper  to  himself;  who  once 
was  not  known  by  the  other  Apostles,  who  once 
resisted  other  of  the  Apostles,  but  who  was  called 
from  eternity  that  the  Son  of  God  might  supple- 
ment the  Gospel  of  the  Law  through  him  by  the 
Gospel  of  the  eternal  Grace  of  God. 

In  like  manner,  there  is  an  Apostle-Church  in 
history  whose  calling  is  in  many  ways  proper  to 
itself;  which  God  once  segregated  from  the  other 
Apostle-Churches  ;  which  has  not  always  been 
known  by  other  Apostle-Churches ;  which,  overruled 
by  the  Task-Master,  once  resisted  other  of  the 
Apostle-Churches ;  which,  nevertheless,  is  ordained 
by  the  Task-Master  to  set  forth  His  Grace  amid 
the  New  Times,  and  among  the  New  Peoples,  that 
God  may  supplement  His  Catholic  Church  of  Law 
by  His  Catholic  Church  of  the  eternal  freedom 
of  His  Grace. 

The  divine  showings  for  the  Mission  of  the 
Church  of  England  appear  in  the  very  nature  of 
a  reasonable  belief  in  God.  Controversy  speaks  of 
the  isolation  of  the  Church  of  England  as  though 
there  were  no  Ruler  of  the  Universe  who  necessarily 
preordained    this    Segregation   or   Separation,  unto 

I 


66  THE  CHURCH 

the  training  for  some  greater  Coming  Together 
again. 

If  the  Reformation,  on  both  sides,  was  mostly 
a  whirlwind  of  terrible  Sin  and  Sacrilege  and 
Plunder  and  Slayings  of  the  Saints;  yet  did  God 
reign  in  the  whirlwind  and  the  thunder  and  the 
lightnings  ;  and  through  perils  and  many  tribulations 
He  set  apart  for  Himself,  and  tried,  and  proved 
His  Apostle-Church. 

God  gave  the  Going  Away  from  forced  Union 
by  Law,  not  as  some  supposed,  that  Men  might 
glory  in  being  separate  ;  but  that  there  might  be 
some  day  a  Returning  Together  in  a  Spiritual  Union 
by  Grace  which  should  endure  for  ever. 

The  destiny  of  the  Historic  Church  in  England 
is  to  prove  that  if  you  try  to  force  men  to  unite, 
they  are  very  likely  to  divide ;  but  that  if  you 
leave  everyone  free  to  separate,  they  will  probably 
seek  how  they  may  come  together,  and  obey  together 
in  one ;  in  fine,  to  prove  that  those  whom  no  man 
could  constrain  in  one  by  the  Law  of  Man,  can  be 
gathered  together  into  a  Final  Spiritual  Catholic 
Church  by  the  Free  Grace  of  God. 


VL 

To  conquer  all^  we  must  be  conquered  by  all. 

Christendom  has  hardened  itself  with  prejudice. 
Catholic  Saints  who  are  prejudiced  against  Puritan 
Saints  should  learn  to  love  them,  and  to  include  the 
Puritan  point  of  view  within  their  own.  They 
cannot    conquer    them    otherwise    than     by    being 


THE  TRUE  CATHOLIC  67 

conquered  by  them.  The  New  Saint  must  recognise 
that  a  fellow-man's  sincere  religion  is  a  synonym  for 
his  soul,  nor  can  the  Saint  love  souls  without  loving 
the  sacred  possessions  of  every  soul.  If  the  Catholic 
recognises  the  Wesleyan,  he  has  expanded  Catholicism 
into  Wesleyanism,  and  incidentally  converted  Wesley- 
anism  to  Catholicism  wholesale.  The  Catholic  Saint 
may  feel  that  in  suffering  conversion  to  John  Wesley 
he  is  endangering  his  own  soul ;  but  unless  his  faith 
triumphs  over  his  feelings,  he  is  no  saint  nor  hero. 
The  Saint  is  one  who  gives  his  soul  to  gain  his 
soul,  and  only  he  who  ventures  all  will  win  all.  As 
Ecclesiastes  says  :  "  He  that  observeth  the  winds, 
shall  not  sow  ;  and  he  that  regardeth  the  clouds,  shall 
not  reap." 

The  true  Catholic  follower  of  Jesus  Christ  in  the 
Twentieth  Century  must  seek  for  direct  Communion 
with  Catholics  everywhere;  and,  without  losing  an 
iota  of  his  Catholicism,  should  suffer  himself  to  be 
converted  to  Methodism  ;  to  Congregationalism  ;  to 
the  Religion  of  the  Friends ;  and  to  the  Evangelical 
Faith. 

Someone  must  make  the  venture  of  being  conquered 
by  all,  in  order  to  conquer  all.  A  monk  once  broke 
into  the  arena  of  the  Colosseum  during  a  gladiatorial 
display,  and  suffered  death  in  order  successfully  to 
bring  the  shedding  of  human  blood  to  an  end. 
Controversy  which  is  the  denial  of  one  Christian's 
faith  by  another  Christian,  is  a  greater  evil  than 
shedding  blood  in  gladiatorial  contests  ;  and  there  is 
an  imperative  demand  upon  the  Christian  conscience 
that  the  spiritual  slaughter  should  terminate. 

No  careful  thinker  is  likely   to   deplore  any  rich 


68  THE  CHURCH 

variety  of  Ideals  within  Christendom  ;  only  would  he 
deplore  the  fact  that  there  are  so  few.  Baptist, 
Congregationalist,  Presbyterian,  Methodist,  Evan- 
gelical, are  far  too  nearly  alike  to  let  us  suppose  that, 
together,  they  could  form  more  than  a  small  portion 
of  the  Catholic  Whole.  What  is  wanted  is  that  a 
Catholic  Saint  should,  at  least  on  the  spiritual  side 
(and  without  exclusive  committal  to  self-exclusive 
ordinances  like  adult  baptism),  become  a  Baptist, 
a  Congregationalist,  a  Presbyterian,  an  Evangelical,  a 
Methodist,  at  least  in  all  their  spiritual  practices  and 
ideals. 

VII. 

The  Incarnation  reveals  the  manner  of  that  Divine 
Visitation  which  Right  Reason  tells  us  will 
overtake  the  whole  of  the  Creation.  Christ 
safeguards  the  channels  of  the  authentic  trans- 
mission of  His  power. 

The  agnostic  asks — Where  does  what  we  call  the 
Incarnation,  come  in  ? 

I  should  ask  rather — In  what  manner  should  we 
conceivably  leave  it  out  ? 

When  floods  denude  the  covering  of  a  mountain, 
they  leave  the  architectural  rocks  behind.  Human 
error  and  sin,  by  their  self-destructiveness,  could  but 
reveal  the  basal  rocks  of  God  which  checked  their 
further  devastations.  No  true  prophet,  if  he  saw 
even  into  one  pebble  rightly,  could  fail  to  see  aught 
but  the  fact  that  a  Messiah  would  come  to  judge  the 
world.  The  hidden  truth  alone  that  His  Judgment 
purported  Love  and  Mercy,  belonged  to  one  of  those 


THE  "DISCIPLE-CHURCHES^^  69 

blessed  realities  called  divine  revelations,  in  which 
God  is  vindicated  as  greater  than  man.  For  the 
World  itself,  unaided  by  this  divine  Affirmative,  could 
never  have  foreseen  that  its  impending  correction 
should  have  been  manifested  as  an  exclusive  Plan  of 
Love. 

The  Disciple-Churches  who  to-day  dispute  among 
themselves  as  to  which  is  greater  or  less  in  God's 
Kingdom,  are  subject  to  the  proverbial  rebuke  that 
their  Master  administered  to  their  spiritual  forbears. 
A  Church's  exclusiveness  is  not  from  its  divineness, 
but  from  its  human  jealousies  and  from  the  self- 
complacency  of  its  members.  It  is  impossible  for 
one  Church  to  claim  pre-eminence  over  other  Churches 
out  of  any  inspiration  from  the  Spirit  of  the  Son  of 
Man. 

The  anxieties  of  a  Newman  about  the  valid  trans- 
mission of  God's  Power  in  history  were  anxieties 
which  took  no  account  of  any  inclusive  Plan  of  Things 
in  conformity  to  Christ.  Newman  correctly  saw  that 
Theism  required  the  reality  of  an  Apostolic  Succession 
and  of  an  embodied  Earthly  Sovereignty  of  the 
Invisible  Christ.  But  he  overlooked  the  Inclusive- 
ness  of  Christ  when  he  began  to  be  anxious  about 
the  place  of  this  or  that  Church  which  had  retained 
the  Institutions  of  this  Transmission.  The  Master 
is  either  with  all  of  His  Disciples  or  He  is  with  7ione 
of  them  ;  and  He  is  with  each  of  them  in  the  exact 
institutional  manner  in  which  each  has  retained  His 
Faith.  The  Anglican  Continuity,  whereby  Anglican 
Priests  receive  the  very  Impression  which  Christ 
breathed  upon  the  Apostles  in  Palestine,  is  valid,  for 
the  plain  reason,  that,  being  a  work  of  this  inclusive 


70  THE  CHURCH 

Spirit  of  Christ,  it  was  taken  from  the  Future  by  the 
Spirit  as  well  as  sent  onwards  by  Christ  unto  the 
Future. 

It  is  inconceivable  that  any  consecrating  Bishops 
who  were  the  links  in  the  predetermined  chain  of  this 
transmission  could  have  thought  and  intended 
anything  which,  to  the  Reason  of  God,  who  sustains 
everything^  could  not  have  been  the  medium  through 
which  His  great  Passing  Through  was  continued 
in  the  World. 

vni. 

Proselytism   between   members  of  bodies  who  equally 
confess  Christy  is  rash  and  immoral. 

All  attempts  of  one  body  of  Christians  to  under- 
mine the  faith  of  another  body  of  Christians  are 
necessarily  immoral ;  because  they  are  breaches  in 
that  moral  compact  between  man  and  man  on 
which  order  and  social  morality  are  founded. 

They  may,  further,  be  sins  against  the  Holy  Ghost ; 
because  unless  the  assailant  of  another's  faith  is 
in  the  Counsels  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  it  is  highly 
probable  that  he  may  be  assailing  the  workings  of 
the  Spirit  of  God. 

Who  has  usurped  from  Christ  His  right  to  know 
His  own,  and  to  abide  with  them  ?  God,  and  not 
the  controversialist,  is  the  arbiter  of  that  which 
belongs  to  the  Church  of  God. 

The  only  valid  arguments  of  one  Church  against 
another  Church  are  spiritual  collective  existence, 
and  spiritual  collective  persistence,  without  words. 
Only   God   creates   and   perpetuates    His   creations. 


THE  "VERA  EFFIGIES"  71 

The  fact  of  the  Living  Church  in  any  land,  is  the 
argument  of  God  that  this  is  His  Church  in  that 
land.  To  assail  the  faith  of  other  Christians,  is  to 
attempt  to  mount  upon  the  throne  of  God  and 
forestall  His  General  Judgment  on  the  Churches 
of  the  Living,  and  on  the  Churches  of  the  Dead. 


IX. 

Every  incident  of  Church  History  has  its  place  in  the 
architectural  plan  of  the  World's  total  realisation 
of  the  Presence  of  Christy  and  in  the  elapse  of  every 
moment  of  time  in  the  History  of  the  Church  one 
of  the  veils  which  are  between  us  and  the  face  of 
Christ  is  taken  away. 

In  order  that  the  whole  Impression,  the  Vera 
Effigies,  the  true  and  perfect  likeness  of  the  Lord, 
be  recovered  again,  so  that  the  spirit  of  Christ,  as 
St  Paul  taught,  may  change  the  beholders  of  Christ 
into  the  likeness  of  what  they  behold,  and  into 
Christ-men  such  as  the  Apostle  Paul  himself  was, 
the  following  conditions  have  to  be  complied  with 
in  that  literalness  and  inerrancy  which  is  required 
for  effecting  any  such,  or  parallel,  psychological 
changes  in  human  personality. 

Firstly,  it  is  necessary  to  have  preserved  in  a 
literal  and  well-defined  and  dogmatic  manner,  the 
total  world-significance  of  Christ.  This  has  been 
done  by  the  Catholic  Creeds,  and  by  the  Ecclesiastical 
definitions  of  dogma.  These  definitions  have  been 
assailed  as  legalistic  and  unspiritual.  But  they 
professedly  are  not  intended  to  supplant  the  inspired 


72  THE  CHURCH 

revelation  of  Christ  in  the  Gospels.  They  are,  in 
a  sense,  legal  or  juristic ;  but  they  are  so  for  the 
supreme  purpose  of  preserving  the  spiritual  fortunes 
of  the  world,  namely,  the  Whole  of  Christ.  The 
Holy  Spirit  worked  upon  the  Mind  of  the  Church 
in  these  definitions  through  mankind's  instinct  for 
holding  fast  whatsoever  of  worth  is  entrusted  in 
its  possession.  The  definitions  of  dogma  have  the 
precise  value  with  which  the  Church  has  invested 
them,  though  it  is  highly  likely  that  the  ultimate 
reason  for  all  these  definitions  is  not  yet  manifest. 

Secondly^  no  one  can  be  perfectly  impressed  with 
the  Spirit  of  Christ  who  is  not  in  active  union 
with  the  Church  throughout  the  world.  In  modern 
language,  he  must  wholly  accept  the  Historic  Church 
of  his  land  ;  but  be  a  complete  Reunionist,  elsewise 
in  desire ;  including  within  his  living  sympathy 
not  only  the  orthodox  Churches  of  the  East  and 
West,  but  the  whole  of  Protestant  Christendom. 
This  condition  is  psychological,  and  therefore  inex- 
orable. In  other  words,  characters  as  Christ-like 
as  Paul,  without  this  living  inclusiveness  towards 
alK  Christians,  simply  will  not  appear.  St  Paul 
and  St  Francis  of  Assisi  were  such  passionate 
realists  that  they  are  psychologically  unimaginable 
as  Protestants ;  but,  none  the  less,  from  the  hearts 
of  their  Catholicism  they  both  embraced  an  essential 
good  of  Protestantism  more  firmly  even  than 
Protestants  themselves. 

Thirdly^  before  Christ  can  be  interchanged  with 
His  own  disciples,  and  through  them  enter,  in  the 
plenitude  of  His  Spirit,  into  the  world,  it  is  neces- 
sary  that   some    men    should    have    been    perfectly 


SYMPATHY  WITH  LIFE  73 

trained  in  the  wholeness  of  these  Messianic 
sympathies  with  life.  This  requirement  is  a  hard 
one,  but  an  exorably  necessary  one.  Sympathy  and 
universal  compassionateness  with  life  were  native 
to  Christ,  whose  Godhead  was  the  Reason  itself  of 
God  in  all  the  Universe ;  but  with  His  followers  the 
acquisition  of  these  virtues  has  taken  them  more 
than  a  thousand  years  to  accomplish.  At  the 
present  day  we  possess  many  models  and  instances 
of  the  clearness  and  the  fire  of  this  major  sympathy 
with  life.  Wordsworth,  Shelley,  Keats,  Rossetti, 
Patmore,  were  true  Seers  of  the  Second  Coming  of 
the  Lord ;  because  they  saw  the  beauty  of  the 
environment  of  the  New  Christ,  in  which  His  new 
earthly  footsteps  are  to  have  their  way  paved  for 
them.  We  must  add  to  the  Nature-lovers  the  list 
of  lovers  of  humanity,  from  Francis  of  Assisi,  Dante, 
Shakespeare,  Jean  Francois  Millet ;  and  the  reformers 
of  human  conditions,  from  Las  Casas  through  Shaftes- 
bury, Ruskin,  William  Morris,  Tolstoi,  Frederick 
Denison  Maurice,  Kingsley,  and  the  Christian 
Socialists.  Add  to  these  all  other  humane  and  noble 
lovers  of  humanity,  reformers,  seers,  social  prophets ; 
all  those  who  are  restless  until  mankind  has  found 
its  rest.  Through  the  influence  of  these  leaders 
our  social  sympathies  have  been  quickened,  or  set 
on  fire.  Their  passion  for  humanity  is  a  genuine 
prophecy  of  the  approaching  kingdom  of  Fire,  of 
the  day  when  their  world-wide  sympathies  and  love 
of  human  life  will  have  found  its  requisition  in  a 
new  race  of  Christ-men  like  St  Paul.  To  these 
very  sympathies  the  Christ-men  will  have  added 
the   authority   which   comes   from  obedience   to    the 

K 


74  THE  CHURCH 

Church,  and  from  the  presence  of  the  living  Saviour 
within  the  Church,  which  the  Holy  Spirit  through 
the  Church  will  give  to  them. 

But  when  Orthodoxy  shall  have  been  illumined 
with  the  human  light  of  cultivated  sympathies ; 
when  obedience  to  the  Church  shall  have  become 
gladdened  with  the  social  reformers'  living  com- 
passionateness  for  man,  then  the  days  of  the  "  peda- 
gogue "  to  Christ  shall  have  come  to  an  end,  and  we 
shall  have  arrived  at  the  eve  of  the  awful  Pentecost, 
in  which  the  Holy  Ghost  will  give  to  individual 
men  the  manifest  personal  presence  and  the 
implanted  Sacred  Heart  of  Christ. 

This  is  the  Third  Kingdom,  the  impending  Reign 
of  the  Holy  Ghost,  the  Coming  of  the  Universal 
Pentecost,  in  which  Christ  will  not  speak  in  parables 
and  enigmas,  but  will  take  away  hearts  of  stone, 
and  so  converse  heart  to  heart  with  men,  that  in 
power  and  might  and  influence,  as  once  happened 
in  the  instance  of  St  Paul,  He  will  have  perfected 
to  Himself  His  true  Disciples. 

Instead  of  opposing  the  Church,  the  new  apostles 
will  be  as  devoted  to  its  interests  as  was  the  great 
prototype  of  the  members  of  the  Kingdom  of  the 
Holy  Ghost,  St  Paul  himself.  But,  at  the  same 
time,  the  Church  will  in  that  day  palpitate  with 
human  sympathies  and  compassionateness  towards 
all  men.  Her  members  will  individualise  Christ : 
that  is,  they  will  not  be  contented  with  quoting  the 
Gospels ;  they  themselves  will  be  inspired  by  the 
Spirit  to  speak  in  the  authority  and  inspiration  in 
which  Christ  spoke.  There  will  be  a  bearer  of  and  a 
mouthpiece  to  Christ  in  every  city  and  village,  and  by- 


A  COVENANT  OF  LOYALTY  75 

way  and  plain.  The  prophecies  about  the  universal 
outpouring  of  the  Spirit  will  be  literally  fulfilled. 
There  will  be  a  virtual  renewal  of  the  Apostolic  Age, 
and  as  keen  an  intuition]  into  the  Risen  Christ  as 
there  was  with  the  Apostles  during  the  Forty  Days 
before  the  Ascension,  or  on  the  occasion  when  Paul 
conversed  with  Him  in  rapture,  face  to  face. 


The  Church  is  equally  a  Covenant  of  Mutual  Loyalty 
between  man  and  man^  as  it  is  a  Covenant  of 
Mutual  Loyalty  between  God  and  Man. 

On  its  human  side  it  may  well  be  said  that  the 
Church  which  Jesus  Christ  founded  for  the  realisa- 
tion of  the  Kingdom  of  God  was,  in  truth,  a  new 
and  eternal  covenant  of  loyalty  to  one  another,  to  be 
inaugurated  between  all  men. 

It  is  to  be  recalled  that  Hosea  had  once  summed  up 
the  whole  duty  of  religion  as  ''  hesed"  ;  which  means 
the  "  loyal  affection,"  "  brotherly  kindness,"  or  "  loving- 
kindness,"  of  men  between  one  another.  This  idea 
was  the  expansion  of  the  idea  of  the  "  sentiment  of 
the  kind  "  (that  is  of  relatives)  to  all  the  Nation. 

In  a  sense,  Christ  closely  applied  Hosea's  doctrine  ; 
though  He  did  not  set  to  it  any  national  limitations. 
It  was  the  reality  of  this  Friendship  which  was  to  be 
the  conductive  medium  of  that  Spiritual  Second  Com- 
ing which  would  make  real  and  substantial  all  hoped- 
for  things.  In  the  delights  of  self-consecration  in 
service  for  one  another,  men  were  to  expect,  to  look 
for,  to  see  the  approach  of,  to  receive,  to  possess  the 


76  THE  CHURCH 

Kingdom,  the  Kingdom  which,  awaiting  this  mediation, 
had  been  prepared  for  them  within  the  very  founda- 
tions of  the  World. 

But  the  really  important  point  is  that  the  Church 
of  Christ,  on  its  human  side,  meant  nothing  else 
whatever  except  a  well-organised  system  of  loyal 
friendship  and  vowed  co-operation.  The  Apostles, 
in  other  words,  were  required  to  preach  throughout 
the  world  that  all  men  were  to  be  reconciled  with  one 
another,  and  to  organise  a  loyal  covenant  of  friend- 
ship. In  so  far  as  they  were  Evangelisers,  they  were 
ministers  of  nothing  else  but  this  Church  or  Covenant 
of  loyal  friendships.  It  is  one  thing  to  say,  first  of 
all,  that  there  is  to  be  a  Church  with  its  Faith, 
Worship,  and  Discipline,  and  that  one  of  its  precepts 
is  that  men  should  love  one  another.  It  is  a  vastly 
different  thing  to  say  that  Christ  discovered  and 
proclaimed  a  new  sense  of  loyalty  between  men  :  that 
He  explained  this  more  in  actions  than  in  words ; 
that  the  words  He  did  say  are  explained  and  inter- 
preted by  His  acting  the  part  of  loyalty  in  what  He 
did  ;  that  He  founded  thereby  a  new  and  eternal 
covenant  of  loyalty  between  men,  and  called  this 
covenant  His  Church ;  that  when  death  became 
inevitable,  He  chose  to  turn  it  into  a  symbol  of  the 
world-wide  fraternisation,  and  made  it  a  pledge  of 
His  own  assured  faith  that  His  interpretation  of  the 
conditions  that  would  entail  the  divine  completion  of 
the  Kingdom  by  the  Spirit,  was  the  only  true  one. 


CHRISTLY  FRIENDSHIP  77 


XL  ,  ^ 

Sinners  by  excess  of  Sociability  were  loved  by  Christ 
as   7ne7i   who  had  misguidedly  sought  for  His 
Kingdom. 

A  startling  feature,  in  the  way  in  which  the  actions 
of  Jesus  speak  of  the  nature  of  the  Kingdom,  is  His 
real  friendship  for,  not  mere  condescension  towards, 
publicans  and  sinners.  We  receive  here  a  suggestion 
of  something  totally  distinct  from  the  conventional 
love  of  souls  among  the  Christian  saints.  Christ 
appears  to  love  the  sinner  for  the  rather  astonishing 
reason  that,  in  falling  into  sin,  He  regards  the  sinner 
as  merely  having  sought  for  the  Kingdom  in  an 
unenlightened  or  uninstructed  way.  This  leniency 
to  the  sinner,  however,  in  no  sense  extends  to  the 
proud  or  self-righteous,  or  to  those  who  are  incon- 
siderate of  others ;  it  only  includes  the  sinners  who 
sin  out  of  an  excess  of  humanity. 

If  the  "wine-bibbers"  and  those  who  "love  much," 
have  sinned  in  the  esteem  of  Jesus,  their  instinct  was 
right,  but,  by  misguidance,  they  unwaringly  found 
evil  spirits  rather  than  the  Spirit  of  God.  For  them, 
if  they  would  but  renounce  sin — the  error,  that  is, 
which  led  them  into  the  hands  of  the  demons — they 
might  find  what  they  had  really  unwittingly  sought 
for  within  the  precincts  of  the  Kingdom  of  God. 
They  would  find  there  the  substantial  possession  of 
what  their  false  conviviality  merely  gave  them  an 
illusory  and  shadowy  possession  of;  or,  of  what  their 
misguided  love  was  merely  the  mocking  caricature. 

And    we   are   not   left   altogether   to    surmise,   in 


78  THE  CHURCH 

attempting  to  unravel  what  would  be  the  immediate, 
as  apart  from  the  ultimate,  benefits  which  the  out- 
casts and  sinners  would  receive.  It  has  been  already 
noticed  that  a  great  part  of  Christ's  Conception  of 
the  Kingdom  was  His  interpretation  of  what  might 
be  called  Friendship  in  a  transcendent  sense.  This 
theological  interpretation  of  Friendship  is  a  leading 
feature  of  the  Gospels  which  the  most  illiterate  of 
readers  or  hearers  cannot  fail  to  recognise.  But  the 
important  point,  over  and  above  the  mere  recognition 
of  the  fact  that  Jesus  gave  people  the  impression 
that  He  had  entered  upon  a  transcendent  and 
eternally  loyal  Friendship  for  them,  was  that,  more 
or  less,  He  considered  the  establishment  of  this 
Friendship  as  the  whole  of  the  initial  or  human  side 
of  the  True  Religion. 

The  proof  that  a  transcendent  sense  of  Loyal 
Friendship  is  of  the  real  commencement  of  the 
Kingdom  of  God,  arises  mostly  from  the  haunting 
impression  we  receive  throughout  the  Gospels  that 
the  power  of  Jesus  came  from  the  way  in  which  He 
impressed  men  that  His  friendship  for  them  was 
divinely  loyal,  and  indestructible.  For  this  reason, 
it  is  quite  easy  to  understand  that  those  who  were 
sinners  out  of  their  desire  for  sociability,  would  have 
soon  felt  assured  that  they  were  likely  to  find  a 
greater  satisfaction  from  their  admittance  into  a 
community  founded  upon  the  divinely  consecrated 
loyalty  of  all  its  members  one  for  another,  than  they 
were  in  the  uncertain  sense  of  friendship  which  arose 
from  conviviality  or  free  love. 

It  was  congruous,  therefore,  that  He  whose 
Kingdom   was   an    Alliance    of    Divine    Friendship, 


REALISM  IN  THE  GOSPELS  79 

covenanted  through  the  earth,  but  reaching  beyond 
the  stars,  should  have  felt  especially  drawn  to  those 
who  had  sought  Him,  although  they  had  not  yet 
known  Him ;  and  whose  ill-fortune  was  that  they 
had  been  ensnared  while  on  their  quest. 

Likewise  was  it  congruous  that  Christ  should  have 
felt  repelled  by  those  sinners  whose  sin  symbolised 
a  rooted  aversion  from  that  brotherly  consideration 
for  other  men  which,  in  all  history,  is  a  movement 
towards  His  New  and  Eternal  Covenant  between  all 
men,  and  between  God  and  men.  -^ 


XII. 

The  Kingdom  of  zvhich  Christ  spoke  is  a  Substantial 
Reality^  inclusive  of  all  the  materiality  of  the 
material  Universe. 

The  words  of  the  Gospel,  however,  show  the 
Kingdom  as  something  more  than  a  mere  ethical 
union  of  men  ; — altJiougJi  Social  Ethics^  as  has  been 
shozvn,  on  the  human  side,  strictly  conditions  the 
Kingdom; — nor  is  the  kingdom  a  forcible  substitu- 
tion of  a  new  kind  of  theocracy  for  an  old  kind. 
The  words  of  the  Gospel  show  that  the  Kingdom  was 
a  substantial  reality,  capable  of  being  treated  of  in 
language  which  is  applicable  to  real  material  things. 
The  Kingdom,  in  the  first  place,  is  something  which 
can  be  "  announced " ;  that  is,  as  some  substantial 
event,  the  tidings  of  which  can  be  made  known  as 
a  definite  message.  It  is  something  which  may  be 
"  expected  "  or  "  looked  for  "  ;  which  may  be  "  near 
at   hand  " ;  which    may   "  appear  "  ;   which  may  "  be 


80  THE  CHURCH 

seen  "  ;  which  may  actually  "  come."  It  is  something 
which  may  be  "  striven  for,"  "  sought  for,"  "  asked 
for " ;  something  to  which  men  can  "  attain " ;  it 
is  something  which  may  be  "  given,"  "  received," 
"  accepted,"  or  "  taken  possession  of."  It  is  some- 
thing which  has  been  "  made  ready  "  or  "  prepared," 
and  to  which  men  may  "  belong  "  ;  to  which  men  may 
be  "  invited."  It  is  something  which  can  be  "  taken 
away,"  or  "  closed  against " ;  from  which  one  can 
"  go  out,"  or  be  "  cast  from  " ;  something  which,  in 
fine,  is  so  real  that  one  can  "  sit  at  table  in,"  or  "  eat 
bread  in  "  ;  "  drink  wine  in " ;  something  in  which 
one  may  be  "the  greatest  or  the  least  in."^ 

These  customary  evangelical  words  agree  together 
in  several  respects,  namely,  in  their  simplicity,  their 
directness,  their  realism,  and  their  implication  that 
the  Kingdom  is  a  substantial  world.  The  very 
essence  of  familiarity  applies  to  them.  They  seem 
to  refer  to  a  world  just  the  same  as  the  world  in 
which  we  live,  but  as  after  having  undergone  a  trans- 
formation which,  even  if  it  be  terrifying  in  the  actual 
crisis  in  which  it  is  to  happen,  nevertheless  is  some- 
thing in  the  long  run  which  will  have  added 
nothing  more  than  a  hitherto  unrevealed  Realism 
to  the  Idealism  of  Life. 

We  gather  the  impression  that  the  material  things 
of  the  world  will  be  raised  up  to  a  kind  of  universal 
consecration,  and  will  become  equal  with  spiritual 
things.  We  gain  confidence  in  these  suggestions  by 
recalling  Christ's  references  to  the  lilies  of  the  field, 

^  For  the  precise  meaning  of  the  corresponcfing  Greek  and 
Aramaic  words,  see  G.  Dalman's  Words  of  Jesus  (Eng.  trans.), 
p.  1 02  ff. 


DIVINE  REALITY  81 

to  the  birds  of  the  air,  and  by  His  other  respectful 
references  to  Nature  as  though  it  were  a  sacred  and 
integral  part  of  the  Heavenly  Sovereignty  of  God. 
We  feel  that  when  parables  are  taken  from  Nature, 
they  are  taken  from  Nature  not  merely  because  they 
are  fitting,  but  because  the  whole  of  Nature  itself 
has  a  secret  affinity  with  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven 
and  the  ways  of  that  Heavenly  Sovereignty,  through 
which  God  is  All  in  All. 


xni. 

The  TJieistic  Measure  of  the  Christian  Conmiunions^ 
taught  by  the  Incarnation,  is  to  the  effect  that 
Divine  Reality  supplements  the  faith-conceptions 
of  every  Communion  of  Christians  about  itself 

The  first  great  humanisation  of  a  living  doctrine 
of  God  is  not  to  be  found  in  any  mere  System  of 
Thought,  but  in  the  fact  of  the  Incarnation,  which 
teaches  us  a  true  Theism  as  well  as  reveals  to  us 
a  Redeeming  God. 

The  Theist,  so  instructed,  has  a  reasonable  belief  in 
God  which  teaches  how  the  divine  reality  of  Substance 
may  supplement  the  human  reality  of  physical  and 
psychological  facts.  Hence  the  actual  living  Tradi- 
tions of  every  Communion  of  Christians  are  a  fair 
indication  of  the  manner,  with  its  limitations,  in 
which  God,  in  all  likelihood,  is  wont  to  deal  with 
such  a  Communion. 

England's  opportunity  for  realising  the  whole 
application  of  the  Theism  taught  by  the  Incarna- 
tion, through  the  very  fact  of  England's  diversity  of 

L 


82  THE  CHURCH 

religious  view,  yet  partial  consentience  in  faith 
about  an  Over-ruling  God,  is  altogether  a  unique 
one.  An  important  point  in  this  Theism  is,  that  its 
thorough  acceptance  renders  religious  controversy 
an  impossibility.  To  the  true  Theist,  every  Church 
or  Institution  proves  its  claim  to  the  divine  attribute 
of  substance  by  what  it  manifestedly  shows  itself  to 
be.  A  Church  which  does  not  recognise  the  sub- 
stantial fact  of  psychological  continuity,  called 
Apostolic  Succession,  delimits  itself  in  so  doing. 
The  believer  in  Apostolic  Succession  merely  brings 
into  consciousness  the  truth  of  the  mathematical 
necessity  of  physical  continuity  ordained  throughout 
God's  Universe  for  the  reaching  of  every  purpose 
at  which  God  aims.  The  Nonconformist  is,  of 
course,  allowed  equally  to  prove  his  own  position 
with  the  hearty  good-will  of  the  truly  theistic 
Churchman ;  for  God,  the  Theist  knows,  is  the  only 
Arbiter  of  Substance,  and  human  controversies  are 
waste  of  words. 


XIV. 

The  Bible  describes  history  as  a  Great  Reconciliation 
of  all  the  Spiritual  Tribes  of  Israel 

It  is  distinctly  a  Biblical  hope  to  aspire  to  a  recon- 
ciliation of  the  Churches  with  one  another  in  some 
institutional  recognition  of  the  Humanity  of  the 
Christ.  The  David  whose  character  and  work  type- 
fied  the  Humanity  of  the  Messiah  in  prophecy  was 
the  Shepherd  or  Gatherer  of  the  Tribes  of  Israel ; 
and,  all  through  Prophecy,  the  Second  David  is  repre- 


BIBLICAL  REUNION  83 

sented  as  the  Healer  of  the  unfriendliness  between 
Israel  and  Juda ;  the  Shepherd  of  the  dispersed 
tribes  and  the  Creator  of  a  world-wide  Ethical 
Alliance,  as  well  as  the  founder  of  a  divine  Church. 

Moreover,  in  the  Bible's  own  plan  of  Reconciliation 
there  is  set  forth  no  uniformity,  nor  absorption  of  all 
the  tribes  of  Israel  by  any  specially  privileged 
tribe.  This  suggested  Ethical  Alliance  of  all 
Churches  in  the  acknowledgment  of  the  Messiah's 
Humanity,  does  not  signify  the  absorption  of  all 
organisations  in  one  organisation ;  but  rather  a 
perfect  equality  of  treatment  for  all ;  and  the  cessation 
of  envy  and  the  spirit  of  aggression  of  one  branch  of 
the  Church  against  another  branch  of  the  Church  : 

"  Ephraim  shall  not  envy  Juda 
And  Juda  shall  not  vex  Ephraim." 

The  last  chapters  of  the  Bible,  which  expressly 
speak  of  the  Future  Church  of  Christ  on  earth, 
confirm  the  status  of  equality  between  the  spiritual 
tribes  of  Israel  in  their  corporate  allegiance  with  the 
Church  of  Christ.  They  are  each  to  preserve  their 
autonomy  and  their  distinctive  names  : 

"And  names  written  (on  the  gates) 
Which  are  the  names  of  the  twelve  tribes  of  the 
children  of  Israel." 

The  foundations  of  the  Great  City  of  God  which 
has  come  down  to  remain  on  earth  are  compacted  in 
like  manner,  of  the  work  of  each  single  apostle  of 
Christ : 

"  And  the  walls  of  the  City  had  twelve  foundations, 
And  in  them  the  names  of  the  twelve  apostles  of  the  Lamb." 


84  THE  CHURCH 


XV. 

The  History  of  our  Possession  of  Christ  in  the  Church 
is  in  some  sense  foreboded  in  the  history  of  the 
Prophecy  of  Christ. 

If  there  was  a  goal  to  Jewish  History,  we  may 
hope  that  there  is  a  goal  or  term  to  the  history 
of  Christian  controversies.  The  reconciliation  of 
Christendom  must  be  worked  out  first  of  all  in  the 
mind  of  individual  Christians.  There  is  a  need 
that  some  Saint  should  interpret  the  Divisions  of 
Christendom,  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  Wounds 
of  Christ  inflicted  on  account  of  Sin  but  likewise 
overcoming  Sin.  It  is  necessary  to  measure,  weigh, 
understand,  feel  with  all  these  Divisions ;  thus  to 
know  and  realise  the  horror  of  them ;  then  to  live 
over  again  in  spirit  their  occasioning  events ;  and  in 
sorrow  and  affliction  live  in  spirit  unto  the  faith 
of  their  reconciliation. 

The  true  Saint  sees  the  hand  of  God  everywhere, 
and  perseveres  through  dullness  until  brilliance  from 
the  Spirit  reappears.  His  victories  are  for  the 
comprehensiveness,  the  major  faith  of  Christ : — 

"  Learn  from  fears  to  vanquish  fears  ; 
To  hope,  for  thou  dar'st  not  despair  ; 
Exult,  for  that  thou  dar'st  not  grieve  ; 
Plow  thou  the  rock  until  it  bear  ; 
Know,  for  thou  else  could  not  believe  ; 
Lose,  that  the  lost  thou  may'st  receive." 


STUDENT  OF  CHRIST  85 


XVI. 


Reconcilers  of  religious  divisions  must  learn  their 
methods  by  studyi^ig  Chrisfs  Humanity^  as  an 
Art  or  Craft  which  pupils  study  from  one  of  the 
Masters  of  their  A  rt  or  Craft. 

One  way  towards  Reconciliation  seems  easy,  direct, 
and  methodic.  Among  all  the  Churches  in  the  land, 
let  classes  be  formed  for  systematic  students  of  the 
Humanity  of  Christ ;  that  is,  classes  of  pupils,  or 
disciples,  of  Christ  as  Master  of  inclusiveness,  and  of 
compassionateness  for  all  sorts  and  conditions  of 
men.  These  students  must  not  mainly  learn  from 
books  and  theologies,  but  they  must  chiefly,  inspired 
of  His  compassionateness,  study  methodically  and 
immediately  from  life.  Each  of  them  must  be 
inclusive,  in  the  systematic  sense  of  going  out  and 
becoming  one  in  spirit  with  the  religion  of  Churches 
other  than  their  own.  Not  lessening,  yea  rather, 
increasing,  their  loyalty  to  their  own  religious  faith, 
let  these  students  of  Christ  endeavour,  by  close  and 
systematic  partaking  in  the  faith  and  piety  of  the 
members  of  other  Churches  for  a  stated  time,  and  in 
a  determinate  manner,  then,  through  their  first- 
hand information  and  sympathetic  insight,  become 
Apostles  of  Reconciliation,  leading  towards  some 
ordering  or  shepherding  of  all  the  Churches  in  a 
federacy  as  to  all  things  in  which  they  are  one  as 
men. 


THE  CHURCH 


XVII. 


Church  Dogma  preserves  our  co7itact  with   the  New 
Universe^  achieved  by  Christ. 

Recent  critical  study  of  the  dogmatic  definitions 
of  the  General  Councils  has  proved  to  be  a  con- 
vincing apologetic  for  the  Historic  Creeds. 

It  is  becoming  known  that  the  basal  conceptions 
in  the  minds  of  the  Ecumenical  Fathers  were  not 
really  metaphysical,  but  rather  juristic.  Nothing  in 
history  is  subject  to  such  revolutionary  changes  as 
metaphysics ;  nothing  is  more  persistent  than  the 
juristic  conceptions  on  which  both  Imperial  Roman 
and  also  Modern,  Rights  of  Property  and  Common 
Law  are  based. 

Regarding  the  dogmas  of  the  Trinity  and  of  the 
Incarnation,  it  was  a  classical  representative  of 
Roman  juristic  conceptions  at  their  best,  namely 
Tertullian,  who  pointed  out  the  eternal  common 
sense  which  must  direct  our  apprehensions  of  the 
contents  of  the  Christian  Revelation. 

When  Tertullian,  with  his  juristic  common  sense, 
was  met  by  the  problem  which  references  to  different 
"  persons  "  in  one  God  necessarily  presents,  he  went 
to  the  Roman  possessional  ideas  of  "substance,"  as 
still  exemplified  in  the  phrase,  "  a  man  of  substance," 
and  argued  that  as  several  men  may  be  owners 
in  the  same  "  substance "  or  "  substantial  posses- 
sions," so  may  the  Three  Divine  "  persons "  be  said 
to  be  owners  of  an  equal  divine  substance  (nature), 
and  yet  remain  distinct  in  themselves  as  persons. 


DOGMA  OF  LIFE  87 

This  clear  view  of  the  subject  passed  over  to 
Greece,  and  won  the  day  at  Niceea  and  Chalcedon, 
where  it  was  decided  that  the  Son  was  of  the  same 
substance,  or  nature  (homoousion)  with  the  Father ; 
that  is,  that  He  owned  or  shared  in  the  possession 
of  the  creative  omnipotence  of  the  Godhead  equally 
with  God  the  Father  of  Heaven  and  Earth. 

Though  the  word  "  substance "  is  only  used  here 
in  a  very  technical  sense,  yet  the  development  of 
the  definitions  of  all  the  Christian  dogmas,  in  the 
Church  of  the  Fathers,  closely  followed  this  pre- 
cedent of  taking  the  common-sense  juristic  concep- 
tion of  religious  truth  as  the  possession  of,  or  loss  of, 
a  substantial  reality  which  had  an  immediate  or 
practical  value  touching  the  life  or  death  of  the 
soul  and  body  of  man. 

So  understood,  dogma  relates  to  the  supreme, 
substantial,  and  cosmic  possessions  of  humanity ; 
possessing  which,  we  live,  and  losing  which,  we 
cannot  help  but  die. 

Although  Dogma  relates  to  the  New  Life  of 
Regeneration,  we  may,  for  the  purpose  of  clearness, 
consider  humanity  without  reference  to  the  Fall, 
after  the  manner  of  the  Scotists,  and  then  refer  the 
needful  credenda  of  faith  to  the  necessity  there  is 
for  being  in  contact  with  realities,  on  the  part  of 
man,  and  without  which  contact  with  the  divine, 
man  can  never  be  real  nor  live  otherwise  than  in 
mere  appearance. 

This  being  so,  it  would  follow  that  the  insertion  of 
the  damnatory  clauses  of  the  Athanasian  Creed  has 
some  justification.  For  even  if  we  eliminate,  ex 
hypothesis   all  reference   to  the  Fall,  the   Trinitarian 


88  THE  CHURCH 

formulas  of  this  Creed  contain  an  acknowledgment 
by  the  believer  of  that  Reality  which  is  Man's  tran- 
scendent environment  within  and  beyond  the  Cosmos. 

If  belief  in  Life  is  really  a  contact  with  Life,  and  if 
refusal  to  believe  in  Life  means  the  cutting  away  of 
personality  from  the  substance  of  Life  and  its  eternal 
possessions,  it  cannot  be  offensive  to  say  that  the 
unbeliever  in  the  essential  Life  of  Humanity  cannot 
possess  the  essential  Life  of  Humanity.  Under 
these  circumstances,  the  damnatory  clauses  of  the 
Athanasian  Creed  are  merely  a  statement  of  the 
obvious  truth  that  you  cannot  have  and  not  have  at 
the  same  time;  though  allowance  must  be  made 
for  the  naif  way  of  recording  the  apprehensions 
of  the  realities  of  Religion  in  the  Early  Middle 
Ages. 

According  to  what  I  have  suggested,  Man,  even 
had  there  been  no  Fall,  could  not  have  lived  without 
Dogma ;  because  Dogma  was  his  mental  contact 
with  Divine  Reality,  and  was  the  sole  medium  in  the 
form  of  Faith  with  his  relationship  with  Eternal  Life 
by  a  co-operating  will. 

St  Irenaeus  forcibly  sets  down  the  common-sense 
point  of  view  with  regard  to  the  realities  of  Sin  and 
the  Atonement.  Irenaeus  is  often  called  naif,  and  he 
is  accused  of  credulity ;  but  his  naivete  seems  to 
have  been  the  very  occasion  of  his  having  preserved 
certain  primitive  conceptions  of  Dogma  which,  had 
his  mind  been  more  philosophic,  there  would  have 
been  much  less  chance  of  his  having  preserved. 

His  vivid  references  to  God  as  the  Master-Work- 
man, exercising  His  skill  in  the  Creation ;  attempting 
to  "  make  Man "  during  the  whole  lifetime  of  Man, 


TEACHING  OF  IREN^EUS  89 

but  requiring  Man's  incessant,  childlike  adaptability, 
in  order  that  each  life  might  express  and  glorify  the 
Master-Workman's  skill — are  an  accurate  religious 
expression  of  the  doctrine  of  Evolution. 

Moreover,  Irenseus,  through  these  conceptions,  sets 
forth  a  common-sense  view  of  the  Fall  and  Atone- 
ment, and  of  the  New  Creation.  Without  Tertullian's 
acumen,  he  at  least  apprehends  the  realism  of  primitive 
Tradition  sufficiently  to  set  forth  the  truth  of  Dogma, 
if  not  as  the  mind's  contact  with  the  "  substance  "  of 
Life,  at  least  as  relating  to  an  essential  quality  of 
"  substance,"  namely,  "  force." 

If  Creation  was  an  act  of  Infinite  Power,  and  was 
hence  conceivable  as  the  setting  in  motion  so  much 
"  force,"  the  Fall,  in  the  "  Apostasy "  of  Satan  and 
Man,  is  the  misdirection  of  "force"  from  the  line 
of  the  divinely  established  Law. 

Sin  was  therefore  an  infinite  entanglement,  a  vast 
and  eternal  Apostasy  from  Law, 

In  the  midst  of  a  universe  of  Sin,  the  Workman 
still  loved  His  Creation,  and  sent  His  Son  with  a 
creative  power  equal  to  His  own  to  restore  beauty  and 
order  to  the  Father's  Masterpiece. 

Every  moment  of  the  Life  of  Christ  was  a  spiritual 
forcing  back  of  all  the  misplaced  energies  of  evil. 
The  "  Apostasy "  was  undone ;  the  reign  of  terror, 
misery,  pain,  suffering,  anguish,  death,  was  accepted 
by  Christ  and  endured ;  and,  by  the  transcendent 
divine  power  which  was  in  Him,  while  it  was  endured, 
it  also  was  undone. 

Since  all  Evil  was  a  misplacement  of  spiritual 
force  which  left  results  as  misplacements  of  material 
force  in  human  Suffering  and  Death,  so,  granted  an 

M 


90  THE  CHURCH 

infinite  power  of  endurance  in  Christ,  spiritual  forces 
which  misdirect  Life  towards  Death  could  be  re- 
directed towards  Heaven  ;  and,  by  His  endurance  of 
Suffering  and  Death,  He  could  redirect  Human 
Death  towards  an  Immortal  Life. 

His  very  naif  idea  of  "  cheating  the  Devil "  is  thus 
seen  to  be  based  on  a  certain  apprehension  of  a  truth. 
Redemption  transmutes  and  re-interprets  the  old  and 
fallen  World.  The  tendencies  of  the  forces  and 
energies  of  Evil  are  turned  backwards,  since  they 
are  the  food  of  the  Restoration ;  and  the  Devil  is,  to 
use  the  phrase,  "  cheated  of  his  own." 

If  no  one  between  St  Paul  and  St  Augustine  seems 
to  have  set  forth  the  telling  personal  point  of  view 
of  Sin,  Irenaeus,  at  least,  is  the  author  of  helpful 
views  which  are  based  instinctively  upon  psychologi- 
cal law.  He  teaches  us  the  objective  reality  of  Sin, 
because  to  him  Sin  is  taken  as  a  destructive  spiritual 
force  which  only  an  incarnate  Deity  could  master. 
We  thus  have  a  foundation  for  the  Christian  doctrine 
of  Sin  and  Redemption  in  the  conception  of  impulsive 
movements  of  spiritual  force  with  an  outlying  sphere 
of  physical  force. 

Grace,  to  Irenseus,  is  a  transcendent  spiritual  power 
put  forth  by  God,  whose  effects  are  the  New  Creation 
of  the  Universe.  In  this  New  Universe,  Jesus  Christ 
is  the  Second  Adam,  and  the  Blessed  Virgin  the 
Second  Eve,  or  "pure  earth." 

In  like  manner,  the  faithful  tradition  of  Catholic 
Christendom,  from  first  to  last,  has  implied  a 
Theism  in  which  the  Earth  itself  is  held  to  be  the 
sacred  and  inalienable  possession  of  God.  God 
possesses  "substance"  of  Himself;  and  because  the 


THE  PLACE  OF  EVOLUTION  91 

World  was  derived  from  Him,  the  Universe  is  there- 
fore the  Kingdom  of  God.  It  is  true  enough  to 
speak  of  "  Evolution,"  then,  if  we  speak  of  Evolution 
as  the  movement  within  or  unto  the  Kingdom,  that 
is,  the  Rule  of  the  Sovereignty  of  God. 

If,  as  we  now  know,  the  path  of  Evolution  has 
been  ever  strewn  with  disaster,  yet  this  doctrine  of 
the  New  Universe,  namely,  of  the  Coming  of  God 
in  Man,  is  precisely  a  recognition  of  the  fact  of 
what  is  called  the  "Struggle  for  Existence,"  and 
all  the  Cosmic  evils  in  its  train. 

The  movement  of  the  New  Universe  is  a  necessary 
parallel  to  the  movement  of  the  Old  (call  that  what 
the  Naturalists  will) ;  for,  otherwise.  Redemption 
could  not  traverse  the  whole  Creation.  Redemption 
has  all  a  Universe  to  redeem ;  and  in  its  tran- 
scending struggle  for  Life  with  Death,  we  need  not 
lose  faith  if  Life's  Conquest  over  Death  has  some- 
thing of  the  slowness  of  the  Creation,  in  a  process 
which  is  not  only  equally  as  great,  but  which,  even 
must,  in  its  outward  aspect,  show  this  or  that  analogy 
to  the  mutterings  and  conflicts  of  that  process  of 
Creation  which  by  some  is  termed  the  "  Evolution 
of  the  World." 


PART   IV 

THE   GENIUS   OF   THE   "TO   BE" 
AND  THE    BOOK   OF   LIFE 


THE   GENIUS  OF   THE   "TO    BE" 
AND   THE    BOOK   OF    LIFE 

"And  the  Spirit  and  the  bride  say,  Come.  And  let  him  that 
heareth  say,  Come.  And  let  him  that  is  athirst  come.  And 
whosoever  will,  let  him  take  of  the  water  of  life  freely.  .  .  . 

"  And  if  any  man  shall  take  away  from  the  words  of  the  book 
of  this  prophecy,  God  shall  take  away  his  part  out  of  the  Book 
of  Life  and  out  of  the  holy  city,  and  from  the  things  that  are 
written  in  this  Book."— St  John. 

I. 

The  Bible  is  the  heralding  of  tJie  everlasting  City  from 
the  Spirit  who  dwells  in  the  eter7ial  To  Be,  arid 
who  sends  His  Words  from  thence  into  the  midst 
of  the  Now. 

How  should  I  read  the  Bible  ? 

There  are  two  creations  of  God ;  this  visible 
Universe  and  the  word  and  substance  of  the  Holy 
Scriptures  ;  and  of  these  the  Holy  Scriptures  are  the 
more  real  of  the  two.  The  Bible  is  concerned  with 
persons  and  events,  and  with  the  knowledge  of  a 
God  who  has  filled  these  persons  and  events  with 
eternal  light ;  so  that  our  life  gravitates  around  the 
Scriptures,  and  they  make  our  lives  real. 

They  are  faithful  portraits  and  character-sketches 

95 


96  GENIUS  OF  THE  "TO  BE^^ 

of  ourselves,  written  by  the  hand  of  God.  The  more 
we  try  to  escape  from  the  Bible,  the  more,  in  truth, 
we  prove  the  Bible,  for  with  our  lives  we  do  but 
write  its  words  again. 

The  Bible  knew  us  before  we  were  born.  It 
knows  what  will  become  of  us.  It  recalls  what  we 
were,  knows  what  we  are,  and  with  infallible 
accuracy,  divines  what  we  shall  be,  and  strives 
within  our  thoughts  that  the  Future  which  it 
divines  for  us  shall  come  to  pass. 

The  Bible  is  not  a  separate  creation  derived  from 
the  Church  of  God ;  rather  the  Bible  itself  is  the 
Church  of  God  in  that  manner  in  which  God  first 
speaks  to  man  before  He  comes  to  man  in  a  real 
and  ordered  way ;  and  all  things  of  which  it  speaks 
in  the  mind  of  man  God  will  surely  bring  to  pass 
and  fulfil  in  the  heart,  soul,  and  whole  bodily  reality 
of  mankind. 

The  Church,  as  we  see  it  at  present,  is  the  partial 
expression  in  bodily  form  of  the  message  of  the 
Bible.  The  final  and  absolute  realisation  and  fulfil- 
ment of  that  message  awaits  the  resurrection  of  the 
body  and  the  descent  from  God  of  the  new  City  of 
Jerusalem. 

If  the  message  of  the  Bible  is  not  to  be  realised 
by  a  practical  fulfilment  of  it  in  the  presence  of  a 
real  Christ,  and  in  a  real  Church  of  Christ,  then  the 
message  is  proved  vain,  and  is  not  any  longer  to  be 
regarded  as  the  Spirit's  heralding  of  the  new  Heaven 
and  the  new  Earth  which  God  will  make. 


FREEWILL  AND  GRACE  97 


IL 

The  Bible  reveals  the  Structural  Plan  of  Human 
History^  whose  truth  first  we  believed  in^  but  now 
we  see. 

Once  we  believed  in  the  Bible  through  faith ; 
to-day  also  we  begin  to  believe  in  the  Bible  accord- 
ing to  sight. 

Other  literatures  interpret  past  events  or  present 
history.  Shakespeare  was  the  genius  of  the  every- 
day of  human  life. 

History  and  politics,  novels,  science  and  art,  reveal 
the  past  and  interpret  the  present  of  man,  but  the 
Bible  alone  in  Literature  is  showing  itself  to  be  the 
storehouse  of  the  science  of  the  incalculable  future 
of  humanity  ;  that  future — that  "  To  Be  "  which  is 
the  outcome  of  the  human  Freewill  co-operating 
with  and  conditioned  by  the  Grace  of  God.  The 
political  economy  of  Mill  and  the  sociology  of  Comte 
alike  admitted  a  constructive  Science  of  Man,  which 
might  have  been  true  but  for  the  fact  that  both 
equally  ignored  that  which  human  Science  of  itself 
could  never  properly  take  into  account,  namely,  the 
incalculable  adventurous  element  of  Freewill  in 
human  individuality,  and  also  the  incalculable  adven- 
turous element  of  the  Grace  of  God. 

Only  a  Divine  Science  could  forecast  the  future 
of  Freewill;  only  Divine  art  could  guide  Freewill 
into  its  right  course  in  spite  of  itself. 

This  is  the  problem  which  the  Bible  solves  and 
is  solving : — 

"  Granted  that  all  the  Nations  will  go  along  their 

N 


98  GENIUS  OF  THE  *'T0  BE^^ 

own  untrammelled  ways,  from  which  it  would  seem 
that  no  power  could  turn  them  aside :  how,  when 
all  plays  have  been  played,  and  all  free  courses  have 
been  run,  and  the  Nations  have  reached  the  term  of 
their  several  possibilities,  could  it  be  brought  about 
that  mankind  should  achieve  its  predestined  goal,  and 
enter,  in  an  evening  of  light,  into  the  perfect 
measurement  and  form  of  the  Humanity  of  Christ  ?  " 

The  Bible  is  the  revelation  of  that  structural  plan 
of  God  through  which  the  Nations,  in  endeavouring 
to  wander  away,  cannot  help  but  come  together  at 
the  end  of  their  wanderings,  and  become  the  single 
Family  of  the  reunited  Children  of  God. 

All  of  its  histories  are,  as  it  were,  written  backwards 
in  a  vision  of  the  World  from  the  End  of  Time.  The 
Bible  knows  that  there  will  be  only  one  supreme 
reality  left  some  day  in  the  unfolding  of  human 
destinies,  and  that  is  that  Brotherliness  of  Man  which 
was  ordained  by  Christ  in  His  New  Commandment, 
and  which  is  pictured  in  its  fulfilment  as  the  New 
Jerusalem,  the  social,  earthly,  fraternal,  but  eternal, 
Paradise. 


HI. 

A/l  Science  is  Science  of  God ;  and  the  Bible  is  not  a 
text-book  of  Science  such  as  any  Sciefitist  can 
inake^  but  it  is  the  source  of  our  inspiratio7i  in 
research  and  the  means  whereby  we  see  that  all 
Nature  is  of  God,  and  that  the  Science  of  Nature  is 
truly  the  Science  of  the  Nature  that  God  has  made. 

Science  of  Nature  is   science   of  His  making  of 


THE  BIBLE  AND  SCIENCE  99 

Nature.  Physics,  biology,  astronomy,  psychology, 
ought  to  thrill  us  with  delight.  Who  would  not  go 
into  the  Government  House  and  learn  how  the  great 
engines  of  Kingdoms  and  Empires  are  driven  by  their 
engineers  ? 

In  like  manner,  by  physics  and  natural  science  we  are 
made  privy  to  the  secrets  of  God  our  King,  and  learn 
the  inner  workings  of  His  Kingdom  in  the  Universe. 

When  the  Bible  was  quoted  against  Galileo,  the 
error  was  not  in  the  Bible  nor  in  the  Science  of 
Galileo ;  but  in  the  mind  of  those  who  thought  that 
these  two  were  not  one  and  the  same. 

The  Bible  is  not  a  text-book,  but  a  living  Spirit, 
trumpeting  the  Creation  of  the  Earth  and  Heaven, 
and  preparing  a  way  for  the  lightnings  of  Christ 
when  He  shall  come  and  judge  the  World. 

The  Bible  is  like  some  mighty  statesman,  whose 
purpose  is  the  building  up  of  the  million-folded 
Holy  City  of  God,  in  place  of  the  sparsely-peopled 
Eden  of  the  Past ;  and  all  this  shall  be  when  God 
shall,  indeed,  have  made  the  Earth. 

The  Theist,  that  is  the  intellectual  Man  of  God, 
loves  Nature,  and  hugs  the  Science  of  Nature,  as  an 
inner  inspection  of  the  Action  of  God. 

Copernicus,  Galileo,  Kepler,  Newton,  Darwin, 
are  Angels  of  the  Resurrection ;  for  they  have  seen 
how  God  is  making  the  things  which  are  about  to  be. 

They  are  all  also  Biblical  men,  interpreting  God's 
Radiance,  and  the  dust  that  He  will  gather  together 
into  life.  When  they  have  done  interpreting  the 
Heavens  and  the  wide  Earth  and  Sea,  the  Bible 
will  place  these  within  the  palm  of  your  hand,  and 
you  then  shall  live  again. 


100  GENIUS  OF  THE  "  TO  BE  " 

Human  knowledge  is  scattered  as  the  dust  around 
the  earth.  Divine  knowledge  is  gathered  into  this 
one  little  Treasure  House  of  the  Bible.  This  all 
means  that  out  of  these  toiling  cities,  and  fields,  and 
roadways  the  Dead  shall  be  gathered,  to  rise  again. 
Because  God  once  made  the  Earth  in  Nature,  He 
will  therefore  make  the  same  Earth  again  in  Grace. 


IV. 

///  what  manner  it  is  true  to  say^  as  some  Reformers 
taught,  that  the  Holy  Scriptures  are  a  virtual 
Incarnation  of  the  Holy  Ghost  in  Human  Letters. 

What  every  reader  seeks  for  in  reading  the 
Scriptures  is  that  the  Light  of  the  Holy  Ghost 
should  be  given  to  him  in  an  equal  manner  to  that 
in  which  it  was  given  to  the  inspired  writer  himself 
The  Bible,  rightly  read,  in  other  words,  should 
inspire  individual  men  in  as  clear  and  forcible  a 
manner  as  that  in  which  the  Holy  Ghost  inspired 
King  David,  Isaiah,  Jeremiah,  or  Daniel. 

When  the  doctrine  of  Private  Interpretation 
was  first  broached,  it  was  said  that  the  Scripture 
was  written  in  such  a  simple  form  of  language  that, 
being  translated  into  the  vernacular,  every  man 
who  read  or  heard  the  Word,  understood  the  message 
of  Eternal  Life  contained  in  it,  and  was  guided 
by  the  Spirit  which  inspired  the  Holy  Scriptures 
to  apply  them  for  his  own  Salvation. 

This  doctrine  of  a  virtual  incarnation  of  the 
Spirit  in  the  letters  of  the  Bible  is  the  partial 
apprehension  of  a  great  and  everlasting  truth. 


PRIVATE  INTERPRETATION  101 

It  is  undoubtedly  the  final  purpose  of  the  Holy 
Spirit,  inspiring  the  Scriptures,  to  bring  the  Revela- 
tion which  they  contain,  in  an  individual  form,  to 
every  man. 

Since  the  Outpouring  of  the  Spirit,  though 
unlimited  in  the  intentions  of  God,  was  yet  markedly 
limited  from  the  beginning  by  reason  of  the  finite 
capacity  of  the  Early,  and  all  other.  Christians ; 
the  Divine  Energy  of  the  Spirit,  therefore,  con- 
centrated Itself  in  creating  helps  to  individual 
interpretations  for  the  purpose  of  bringing  to  pass 
the  Church's  life-likeness  to  its  Master. 

The  Energy  of  the  Holy  Ghost  thus  synthesised 
itself  in  the  definitions  of  ecclesiastical  dogmas 
by  the  Councils  of  the  Fathers  in  the  Early 
Church. 

Among  all  those  men  also  who  possessed  the 
native  capacity  for  seeing  and  understanding  the 
Scriptures,  illumination  from  on  High  was  freely  given 
in  accordance  with  their  human  capacity.  To  the 
lawyer's  mind  of  Tertullian,  inspiration  was  individu- 
ally given  to  conceive  of  dogma  as  "a  sacred  trust 
confided  to  the  Church.  To  Athanasius  was  given 
power  to  understand  from  the  Scriptures  the 
Place  of  Christ  in  the  Cosmos.  Augustine's  experi- 
ence of  Evil  had  given  him  all  the  greater  capacity 
for  receiving  individual  illumination  about  the 
Scriptures  ;  and,  in  many  instances,  of  so  reading 
them  as  though  he  were  the  inspired  writer  receiv- 
ing them  for  the  first  time  from  the  Holy  Ghost. 

The  Confessions  of  this  Prophet  of  the  Western 
Church  are  a  model  of  the  legitimate  type  of 
Private  Interpretation  of  Scripture.     No  book  is  more 


102  GENIUS  OF  THE  "TO  BE" 

personal,  more  individual,  more  a  converse  immediate 
unto  God,  of  one  apart  from  all,  yet  inclusive  of 
all.  The  Confessions  of  Augustine  are  a  life-story 
which,  itself,  is  an  inspiration  from  Inspiration,  a 
revelation  from  Revelation,  an  entire  personalisation 
of  the  Sacred  Scriptures  as  a  present  experience, 
unique  of  its  kind,  and  separate  from  that  of  anyone 
else. 

All  the  Saints  and  Mystics  of  the  Undivided 
Church,  in  so  far  as  their  lives  are  recorded  to 
us  in  detail,  are  instances  of  luminous  individual 
interpretation  of  Scripture.  God's  Law  inspires  them 
in  all  that  they  think  and  do.  If  they  write  like 
Caedmon,  Bede,  St  Patrick,  St  Bernard,  Richard 
and  Hugo  St  Victor,  St  Gertrude,  and  St  Melchtilde, 
St  Thomas  of  Aquin,  Dante,  Thomas  a  Kempis, 
St  Catherine  of  Siena,  their  writings  are  one  vast 
and  more  or  less  detailed  vision  of  the  reality  of 
the  Revelation  of  the  Holy  Scriptures,  made  present 
and  ever  living  to  them  through  the  Objective 
Church. 

They  ever  conceive  of  the  Church  as  a  blessing 
which  gives  them  Freedom  of  Interpretation,  not 
a  curse  which  takes  their  individual  rights  away. 

So,  equally,  through  fellowship  with  the  Living 
Church  of  God,  shall  the  Reign  of  Private  Inter- 
pretation come  to  pass  for  all  the  World. 


DOGMA  AN  AFFIRMATIVE  103 


V. 

Men  deny  this  or  that  Dogma  or  all  Dogmas^  because 
they  erroneously  regard  a  Dogma  as  a  Negative  ; 
whereas  it  is  in  every  instance  an  Affirmative  to 
some  question  which  all  men  desire  to  be  answered 
as  "  Year 

When  the  Reformers  started  upon  a  career  of 
individual  interpretation,  they  attempted  to  reach  the 
Promised  Land  without  regard  to  the  fulfilment  of 
the  Logic  of  Faith.  They  chose  the  course  of 
individual  negations  of  Received  Dogmas,  rather  than 
that  of  personally  idealised  affirmations  of  these 
same  Dogmas,  which  would  have  been  their  right 
course  to  follow. 

Whatever  a  Reformer  wrote  of  value  was  in  con- 
formity with  the  universal  dogmas  of  Catholicism. 
What  Luther  meant  by  Justification  by  Faith  would 
have  been  a  noble  intuition  into  certain  great  truths 
of  the  Catholic  Scriptures,  if  it  had  not  been  set  forth 
in  contradiction  to  the  Holy  Ghost  in  other  aspects 
of  the  Faith  of  the  Christian  Commonwealth. 

Nevertheless,  there  is  no  going  backwards  in  the 
Advance  Movement  of  the  Reign  of  the  Spirit  of 
God  among  the  followers  of  Christ.  The  Sins  of  the 
Reformation  Period,  and  its  innumerable  denials  of 
that  Common  Faith  through  which  Individual  Faith 
is  won,  have  been  made  by  the  Spirit  of  God  the 
occasion  of  a  greater  good  than  could  have  happened 
without  them. 

Without  the  Reformation  and  Protestantism,  we 


104        THE  GENIUS  OF  THE  "TO  BE" 

could  never  have  had  such  powerful  and  individual 
reasons,  tested  by  personal  experience,  for  accepting 
the  common  bond  of  dogma  as  the  Charter  of  Faith 
which  sets  the  individual  free. 

In  the  Catholicism  of  the  Future,  every  one  will 
obey  the  Decrees  of  the  Teaching  Authority  of  the 
Church,  because  everyone,  from  reading  history,  or 
by  his  own  individual  experience,  will  know  for 
certain,  that,  in  no  other  manner  can  he  secure  the 
right  to  Private  Judgment  and  personal  Illumination. 

For  the  same  reason  coercive  religious  politics, 
which  is  the  supreme  creator  of  infidels,  will  have  no 
further  reason  for  existence.  Men  object  to  the 
Catholic  Faith  because  they  object  to  the  coercive 
religious,  or  even  secular,  politics  with  which  it  has 
been  associated.  When  it  is  generally  understood 
that  the  Catholic  Faith  is  the  unique  guarantee  of 
Individual  Freedom  in  Faith,  and  of  the  right  to 
Private  Judgment  in  the  Interpretation  of  the  Scrip- 
tures, the  Promised  Reign  of  the  Spirit  of  God  will 
not  be  far  away. 

We  are  not  called  upon  to  imitate  the  peculiarities 
of  the  Saints,  but  to  imitate  the  freedom  of  the  Saints, 
in  personalising  the  Holy  Scriptures,  and  in  person- 
ally interpreting  the  significance  of  the  Life  of  Christ. 

Before  we  can  understand  the  Saintly  Life,  we 
must  understand  the  intellectual  principles  through 
which  Saintly  Life  is  conceivable.  These  are,  in  the 
first  case,  a  voluntary  and  entire  and  unquestioning 
acceptance  of  the  whole  Catholic  Faith  as  the  medium 
of  the  permanent  Inspiration  of  the  Scriptures,  by 
the  Holy  Ghost,  to  each  individual  man.  In  the 
next  case,  we  must  accept  that  sacramental  medium 


THE  HOLY  GHOST  105 

of  the  perpetuity  of  Christ  by  the  Holy  Ghost  which 
also  is  given  us  by  the  Church  of  God. 

At  length  the  Church  and  all  its  Saints  will  appear 
as  the  Great  Affirmative  of  the  Freedom  and  the 
Ransom  won  by  Christ  for  men,  and  in  the  Freedom 
of  Christ  all  men  shall  themselves  become  free. 


VI. 

What  we  call  the  Future^  is  sijnply  the  looking  forward 
of  the  Universe  to  the  Holy  Ghost.  The  Holy 
Ghost,  that  is,  functions  in  the  Universe  frojn  the 
End  of  the  Universe  ;  and  all  that  He  conceives  in 
TJiought  or  Being  in  Time,  is  predestined  to 
remain  for  ever. 

The  Holy  Ghost  is  to  us  the  eternal  Future  of 
God,  the  eternally  Future  God,  who  sends  from  the 
Future  His  Angels  unto  the  Now.  The  reason  why 
what  He  conceives  of  in  thought  or  being — of  thought 
which  predestines  being — will  live  for  ever,  is  because 
He  Himself  is  the  Forever,  and  descends  from  the 
Forever;  and  what  He  conceives  in  Time,  He 
conceives  through  Time  unto  His  eternal  To  Be. 

How,  then,  can  the  Spirit  of  God  foretell  the  To 
Be?  Because  He  Himself  can  foretell  Himself,  who 
is  the  To  Be,  when  He  comes  from  thence  into  the 
Now. 

How,  in  like  manner,  can  the  Spirit  of  God  conceive 
a  Future  One  in  Time  ?  Because  if  He  conceives  a 
child,  that  child  can  only  be  the  Eternal  Future  Child. 
Because  He  Himself  comes  from  the  Eternal  Future, 
and  He  conceives  only  unto  Himself. 

O 


106        THE  GENIUS  OF  THE  "TO  BE^^ 

Searching  and  feeling  the  earth,  and  all  that  is  in 
the  earth,  the  Holy  Spirit  conceives  eternal  thoughts 
in  minds  that  count  upon  Him,  and  conceives  the 
Immortal  Son  of  God  in  the  human  heart  which  most 
desires  Him. 

He  conceived  eternal  Thoughts  in  the  minds  of  all 
the  Prophets  and  in  the  minds  of  all  who  love  the 
Prophets,  until  the  End. 

He  conceived  the  eternal  Son  of  God  in  the  Virgin 
Mary  and  in  the  hearts  of  all  who  since  then  have 
loved  the  Coming  of  the  Son  of  God. 


VII. 

If  we  could  understand  the  Natural  Truth  of  one 
particle  of  the  Universe^  we  could  prophesy  the  future 
history  of  every  particle  in  it  as  a  Whole.  In  like 
manner^  the  Holy  Spirit^  searching  into  the  depths^ 
foretells  the  eternities  ;  first  of  all ^  the  unmeasured 
failings  of  the  Heart  of  Man^  and  secondly^  the 
unmeasured  success  of  the  Grace  and  Love  of  God. 

The  Kingdom  of  God  is  built  up  through  all 
places  and  times  in  the  Universe  by  the  eternal 
vision  of  purpose,  through  the  Reason  of  God,  and 
by  the  eternal  execution  of  this  purpose  by  the 
power  of  the  Spirit  of  God. 

The  Spirit  of  God  brooded  over  the  abyss  during 
what  we  call  geological  eras — the  record  of  whose 
incredible  ruin  is  embedded  in  the  rocky  strata  of 
the  earth — until  the  first  perfect  triumph  of  the 
Lord  and  Giver  of  Life  in  the  appearance  of  the 
moral  creation. 


THE  PROPHETS  107 

The  Life  of  Humanity  became  an  abyss  too,  upon 
which  the  Spirit  of  the  Resurrection  brooded  again 
in  the  Law-giving,  and  in  all  Prophecy. 

Prophecy  is  universally  related  to  the  final  triumph 
of  the  Kingdom  of  God  in  the  World.  The  Spirit 
of  God  spoke  by  the  mouth  of  the  prophets.  There 
were  greater,  and  more  humane,  and  more  enlight- 
ened, nations  than  Israel.  But  Israel  among  all 
others  was  consecrated  to  the  Future  of  Humanity ; 
and,  through  the  Power  which  is  eternally  building 
up  triumph  from  ruin,  in  the  visions  of  Amos,  Hosea, 
Micah,  Isaiah,  Jeremiah,  and  others,  it  reached 
forwards  in  advance  towards  the  very  goal  of  human 
history. 

Amos,  the  Seer  of  Justice,  was  empowered  to  speak 
of  that  eternal  righteousness  and  justice  which, 
through  him,  for  the  first  time  was  applied  equally 
to  the  favoured  as  to  the  unfavoured  races,  and 
which  righteousness  is  of  the  very  Character  of 
God. 

The  Spirit  showed  Hosea,  the  Seer  of  Love, 
through  the  parable  of  loyal  human  affection  against 
faithlessness,  how  Love  would  conquer  Death,  even 
if  the  way  of  repentance  in  fallen  Israel  were  hidden 
from  the  Seer's  eyes. 

Micah,  in  the  Spirit,  was  the  Seer  of  the  Triumph 
of  Lowliness,  and  foresaw  that  the  World  would 
be  redeemed  through  what  was  foreboded  in  the 
calling  of  David  of  Bethlehem  from  the  lowly  office 
of  tending  the  flocks. 

Isaiah  lived  in  the  Spirit  in  the  Messianic  Age, 
and  foresaw  the  conversion  of  Humanity  within  the 
likeness  of  the  spirit  of  a  little  child,  and  how  all 


108        THE  GENIUS  OF  THE  "TO  BE" 

people  would  be  reunited  in  the  spirit  of  this  leader- 
ship. 

Jeremiah  foresaw,  in  the  Spirit,  the  reign  of  the 
new  and  eternal  Covenant,  in  which  filial  piety  would 
be  taken  as  the  guide  towards  blessedness,  yielding 
for  humanity  a  filial  relationship  with  God. 

Daniel  foresaw,  in  the  Spirit,  how  the  beast-like 
characteristics  of  ancient  and  many  modern  nations 
would  cause  their  ruin,  and  how,  at  length,  in  place 
of  the  reign  of  brute  force,  Humanity  should  be 
ruled  in  the  likeness  of  the  Son  of  Man. 

Joel  foresaw,  in  the  Spirit,  the  Days  of  Promise,  in 
which  the  Holy  Ghost  would  be  poured  out  on  all 
flesh. 

In  each  of  these  instances  what  strikes  us  most  is 
the  incredible  and  insuperable  obstacles  in  the  way 
of  the  looked-for  triumph. 

Who  but  the  Spirit  of  God  could  have  dictated 
the  triumph  of  Social  Justice  in  the  Age  of  Amos  ? 
or  who  else  but  the  Creative  Spirit  of  God  could 
have  foreseen,  in  an  Age  of  hatred  and  deathliness 
like  that  of  Hosea,  the  triumph  of  Love  securing 
deathless  life? 

While  the  Assyrians  were  enslaving  or  torturing 
the  peoples,  who  could  have  foreseen  the  leadership 
over  the  nations  of  a  little  child,  but  the  Spirit 
speaking  through  Isaiah? 

Or,  in  an  age  of  Babylonian  conquest,  who  else 
could  have  predicted  empire  to  the  Servants  rather 
than  the  Lords  of  earthly  might  ? 

The  Biblical  definition  of  the  Holy  Ghost  is  written, 
therefore,  in  the  same  characters  from  the  beginning 
to   the   end   of  the   Bible.     It   is   the  Power  which 


OFFICE  OF  THE  HOLY  SPIRIT         109 

foresees  a  divine  destiny  to  the  Creation,  which  no 
creature  could  have  foreseen  for  itself;  and  the 
Power  which  descends  upon  the  creature,  and  which, 
breaking  through  all  obstacles,  leads  the  creature  into 
its  place  within  the  Kingdom  of  God. 

The  office  of  the  Holy  Spirit  in  the  Old  Dispensa- 
tion was  to  create  a  People  of  Destiny,  a  People  of 
the  Future,  a  People  of  Vision,  a  People  who  lived 
to  bring  the  Vision  of  a  Messianic  Kingdom  into 
effect. 

The  Holy  Ghost  always  seems  to  come  as  it  were 
out  of  the  Future.  Aspiration  and  desire  are  human  ; 
so  is  longing  for  an  ideal.  But  the  theological 
virtues  of  Faith,  Hope,  and  Love,  which  set  forth 
these  aspirations,  desires,  and  ideals  in  a  real  king- 
dom of  Heaven,  are  the  beginnings  of  the  New 
Creation  of  God.  The  Sum  of  what  the  Holy  Ghost 
taught  to  the  Israelites  through  the  Prophets,  was 
the  use  of  these  three  divine  virtues  in  response  to 
the  cravings  of  man. 

As  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  teaches,  it  was  Faith 
which  triumphed  over  the  dead-weight  of  evil  and 
prepared  the  way  for  Christ. 

All  the  Bible  is  the  history  of  Faith,  Hope,  and 
Love  pitted  against  the  Wisdom,  Power,  Skill,  Greed, 
and  Inhumanity  of  the  World  ;  and  all  the  Bible  is 
the  Song  of  Triumph,  in  which  obstacles  are  made 
as  the  steps  of  the  ladder  towards  the  Eternal 
Kingdom. 


110        THE  GENIUS  OF  THE  "TO  BE'^ 


VIII. 

The  function  of  the  Holy  Ghost  is  to  lead  meji  onwards 
towards  their  destinies. 

In  the  New  Testament  the  Holy  Spirit  is  revealed 
as  the  Executive  Power  which  brings  man  into 
contact  with  his  destiny.  It  was  the  Holy  Spirit 
who  brought  about  the  Incarnation  in  the  womb 
of  Mary ;  which  led  Jesus  in  His  work ;  which 
descended  on  Him  in  Baptism  ;  which  came  upon 
Him  in  preaching ;  through  which  He  cast  out 
devils ;  and  concerning  which  the  object  of  all 
rightful  prayer  is,  that  He  should  descend  in  like 
manner  upon  every  one  who  prays. 

It  is  the  Spirit  which  triumphs  over  Death,  by 
causing  Christ  to  rise  to  life  after  dying;  which 
transforms  the  weak  and  failing  apostles  into  men  of 
authority  and  power  ;  which  makes  Christ  perpetually 
present  in  the  Church  ;  which  sends  Him  into  the  lives 
of  individual  men ;  and,  finally,  which  will  bring 
Christ  a  second  time  in  His  visible  presence  in 
the  world  :  As  St  John  says,  it  is  the  Spirit  which, 
at  the  consummation,  will  say  to  the  Lord  Jesus, 
"  Co7ne ! "  thereby  bringing  about  the  dawn  of  the 
closing  Era  of  the  world. 

IX. 

The   Holy  Spirit  is  the  Conqueror  of  the   historical 

barriers  which  hold  back  the  Disciples  fivm  their 

Master,  and  prevent  them  from  enjoying  Liberty 

in  Him. 

The  Spirit  of  God  is  the  power  which  overcomes 


HUMAN  DESTINIES  111 

the  obstacles  in  perpetuating  the  Church,  and  in 
spreading  and  expanding  salvation  to  all  men. 

The  obstacles  are  overcome  through  the  preserva- 
tion and  acceptance  of  a  common  Divine  Faith, 
and  through  the  embodiment  of,  and  obedience  to, 
the  Divine  Will ;  but  the  goal  of  obedience  of 
faith  is  freedom  of  sight,  and  the  goal  of  obedience 
of  will  is  freedom  in  possessing  God. 

The  necessity  for  continuity  and  unity  thus 
creates  a  series  of  obstacles  against,  or  checks  upon, 
individual  religious  freedom.  It  is  the  function  of 
the  Holy  Ghost  in  the  individual  not  to  lead  the 
individual  into  independence  from  the  Church ;  but 
to  use  the  individual's  dependence  on  the  Church 
as  the  instrument  through  which  the  freedom  of  the 
self-same  individual  is  obtained. 

As  the  Spirit  of  God  gives  Life  in  spite  of  Death, 
and  Love  in  spite  of  Hatred,  and  Faith  in  spite 
of  Unbelief,  and  Hope  in  spite  of  Fear ;  so  too, 
Its  obedience  and  discipline  are  the  instruments  of 
freedom  rather  than  the  destroyers  of  religious 
freedom. 

So  too,  by  the  functional  power  of  conquest 
inherent  in  the  Holy  Ghost,  in  spite  of  heresy  and 
schism,  there  can  be  no  looking  backwards  in  the 
history  of  the  Church  of  God. 

The  goal  of  Church  History,  as  St  Paul  taught, 
is  the  universalisation  of  Christ;  the  bringing  of 
Christ  unto  each  individual  life ;  and  the  making 
of  the  invisible  Christ  to  live  in  as  real  a  spiritual 
presence  in  the  Church  as  though  He  lived  in 
actual  visible  presence  there. 

To  man,  this  universalisation  of  Christ  seems  an 


112        THE  GENIUS  OF  THE  *'T0  BE" 

utter  impossibility;  nevertheless,  every  movement 
in  Church  History  has  no  other  significance  than 
as  a  step  towards  the  mighty  Spirit  of  God's  triumph- 
ant universalisation  of  Christ. 


X. 

TJie  plenitude  of  tJie  Greater  Life  of  Grace,  which 
was  spoken  of  in  Scripture  iji  a  unique  sense 
as  the  Pleronia  of  Christ,  zvill  only  be  received 
in  the  measure  whicJi  is  their  due  by  ine7i,  when 
men  have  first  learned  to  live  the  Greater  Life 
of  Nature  in  the  gi^eater  sympathy  with  Man- 
kind. 

In  the  Christian  Scheme  of  Life,  it  appears  that 
the  gift  of  the  Spirit  of  God  in  its  plenitude  is 
withheld  until  each  man  becomes  universalised,  that 
is,  drawn  out  from  his  own  self  and  put  into  vital 
relationship  with  all  good  men,  past,  present,  and  yet 
to  come. 

Because  we  are  related  to  the  departed  Saints 
by  the  law  of  the  communion  of  Saints,  these 
Saints  possess  a  more  abundant  life  from  us,  and 
so  likewise  have  we  ourselves  from  them.  Because 
we  are  in  communion  with  the  rest  of  the  Church 
of  God  on  earth,  we  aid  others,  and  others  aid  us. 
Because  we  are  related  with  the  Future,  our  way 
thither  is  the  more  securely  ascertained,  and  the 
Kingdom  of  the  Future  is  forestalled  for  us  in  the 
Kingdom  of  the  Now. 

Social  Science  more  and  more  recognises  that 
the   perfect  "  Individual "  is  the  man  with  the  most 


THE  UNIVERSAL  PENTECOST  113 

universally  human  and  sociable  mind.  What  Social 
Science  dimly  sees,  the  Church  of  God  takes  for 
granted,  and  works  upon,  as  an  integral  law  of  our 
being,  from  the  first  to  the  last. 

What,  then,  may  we  assume  to  happen  when,  as 
in  the  modern  instance  of  the  Irvingite  Church, 
its  members  declare  that  the  day  of  Universal  Pente- 
cost is  about  to  arrive,  and  that  all  men  are  about 
to  receive  the  Holy  Ghost?  We  may  be  well 
assured  that  all  Sects  have  had  some  reason  for 
their  existence,  in  the  imperfections  of  the  members 
of  the  Church  of  God.  But  since  the  Universal 
day  of  Pentecost  can  never  come  except  through  aid 
of  the  representation  of  the  whole  of  mankind  in  an 
institutional  manner  to  us,  these  schisms,  immediately 
their  upholders  recognise  that  there  is  a  place  for  all 
men  in  the  Historic  Church  of  God,  become  deliberate 
retardations  of  the  date  of  the  Advent  of  the  Day  of 
the  Lord. 

We  may  here  make  a  distinction  between  the 
gift  of  the  Spirit  as  a  limited  means  of  grace,  and 
Its  gifts  in  a  total  and  transforming  sense.  God  in 
His  mercy  gives  His  Holy  Spirit  to  all  who  seek 
for  or  pray  for  It ;  but  the  gift  is  limited  by  the 
self-limitations  on  the  part  of  the  recipients.  If  God 
had  not  made  concord  with  Humanity  a  condition 
of  our  receiving  the  plenitude  of  His  gifts,  it  might 
all  be  otherwise.  But  both  the  laws  of  society, 
as  discovered  by  reason,  and  the  laws  of  God,  working 
through  the  Churches,  require  that  we  should  be 
all  things  to  all  men  before  God  can  become  All 
Things  to  us. 

The  times  and  moments  of  the  Divine  Life  within 

P 


114        THE  GENIUS  OF  THE  "TO  BE" 

the  Church  are  set  to  the  working  of  the  Grace  of  God 
by  the  limitations  of  capacity  on  the  part  of  man. 
Upon  all  these  limitations  being  removed,  the  way 
is  made  ready  for  the  total  outpouring  of  the 
Spirit. 


XL 

There  are  many  cases  of  Individual  Inspiration, 
through  the  Church,  recorded  in  Church  Histoiy  ; 
and  in  the  future  Days  of  Promise,  the  Gift  of 
Individual  Inspiration  throughout  the  Church  will 
be  universally  bestozved. 

The  early  Christians,  wandering  through  the  Cata- 
combs in  the  bowels  of  the  earth,  and  liable  at  any 
moment  to  be  apprehended  or  ensnared  by  their 
pagan  enemies,  were  wont  to  sing  the  psalm, "  Dominus 
regit  me  "  ("  The  Lord  is  my  Shepherd  ").  Who  can 
doubt  but  that  the  Holy  Ghost  actually  spoke  to 
them  through  these  sacred  words,  and  as  it  were, 
inspired  this  psalm  anew  to  convey  a  special  message 
to  the  oppressed  Christians,  signifying  that  Christ 
was  their  Ruler,  their  Shepherd,  here  and  now ;  and 
would  bring  them  to  pastures  and  into  ultimate  safety, 
for  the  purpose  of  the  triumph  of  His  Church  in  the 
World  ? 

Another  noted  instance  of  individual  inspiration  is 
St  Bernard's  Commentary  on  the  Song  of  Songs, 
which  exerted  so  deep  an  influence  on  the  Church  of 
the  Middle  Ages.  While  it  is  denied  by  critics  that 
the  Canticles  was  an  allegory  in  the  first  instance,  it 
is   probable   that   it   at   least  was   dealt  with  as  an 


INDIVIDUAL  INSPIRATION  115 

allegory  by  the  Jewish  Synagogue.  The  Christian 
Church  always  took  it  to  be  such  ;  but  in  St  Bernard's 
Commentaries  there  is  a  vivid  individual  treatment, 
in  which  its  allusions  are  interpreted  in  the  spirit  of  a 
new  tenderness  and  emotion  which  no  one  had  ever 
discovered  in  Canticles  before.  Who  shall  say  that 
these  tender  allusions  to  the  love  between  Christ  and 
the  Soul,  unrevealed  before  Bernard's  time,  were  not 
a  special  and  individual  inspiration  communicated  to 
St  Bernard,  of  an  authorative  new  meaning  placed 
by  the  Holy  Ghost  on  the  words  of  Canticles,  but 
according  with,  not  denying,  the  interpretation 
generally  given  by  the  Church  as  handed  down  from 
the  Jewish  Church  ? 

Another  noted  instance  of  inspiration  through  the 
Church  is  the  attribution  to  Christ  of  the  beautiful 
phrase,  The  Desire  of  the  Nations  shall  come.  There 
is  no  truer  prophecy  than  that  which  visualised 
human  cravings,  aspirations,  and  wants  in  a  picture  of 
their  summed  fulfilment  through  a  Divine  Man,  and 
then  said  that  this  Divine  Man  would  actually  appear 
in  the  world.  Yet  the  Revised  Version  significantly 
gives  what  purports  to  be  the  original  words  of  the 
text  of  Haggai,  "  The  desirable  thiiigs  of  all  nations 
shall  come " ;  that  is,  "  the  silver  and  gold  and 
treasures  of  the  surrounding  nations  shall  be  brought 
together  for  the  rebuilding  of  Jerusalem  and  the 
Temple."  Unto  the  translator  of  the  Septuagint,  or 
the  other  individual  who  first  saw  the  meaning  of  the 
text  in  the  newer  and  deeper  sense  of  regarding  the 
Messiah  as  sent  by  God  to  fulfil  in  Himself  the 
prayers  of  all  the  peoples,  a  new  or  individual  inspira- 
tion   of  a  text   of  Scripture  was  vouchsafed,  whose 


116         THE  GENIUS  OF  THE  ''TO  BE" 

revelation  was  afterwards  accepted  by  all  the  Church 
of  God. 

What  happened  in  these  instances  shall  be  of 
universal  occurrence  in  the  Days  of  Promise  which 
are  before  us.  The  Holy  Ghost  will  speak  anew  to 
the  heart  of  every  man  by  the  mouth  of  the  Holy 
Prophets,  and  proceeding  through  the  Moral  Law  of 
God  the  Father,  and  through  the  Authority  coming 
from  submission  to  the  Church  of  Christ,  the  Holy 
Ghost  will  teach  each  man  new  interpretations  of 
mysteries  through  the  old  words,  applied  in  new 
senses  to  new  lives  and  their  new  environments. 
Thus  the  Holy  Scriptures  will  be  to  each  one  a 
living  Oracle  of  God,  telling  us  new  truths,  opening 
new  vistas  of  the  Kingdom,  interpreting  us  history  in 
a  new  meaning,  revealing  our  own  characters  and 
souls  in  a  hitherto  undivulged  light.  It  will  be  as 
though  each  of  the  Prophets  had  risen  from  the  dead 
and  conversed  with  us,  and  as  though  the  whole 
pageant  of  the  religious  history  of  the  World,  and  of 
Redemption,  had  been  enacted  only  and  solely  for 
each  of  us. 


xn. 

The  Holy  Ghost  is  the  great  Recapitulator  of  the 
Mercies  to  Humanity  i^i  Mercies  to  Individual 
Men  ;  but  the  media  of  the  New  Freedom  of  the 
Spirit  are  the  Old  Obediences,  which  are  7tot  to 
be  undone. 

In  the  Church  of  God,  since  the  Age  of  Revelation, 
the  Spirit  of  God    is   performing  a   work    which   is 


THE  KINGDOM  OF  THE  SPIRIT         117 

parallel  to,  but  more  advanced  than  Its  work  during 
the  time  of  the  preparation  for,  and  founding  of, 
the  Church. 

The  Spirit  in  the  Church  is  for  ever  prophesying 
anew  by  the  mouth  of  the  Holy  Prophets ;  the 
Spirit  is  ever  singing  a  New  Song  in  the  hearts 
of  believers  in  the  words  of  the  Old  Songs  which 
It  first  conceived  in  the  heart  of  the  Psalmists  of 
God. 

Since  all  the  work  of  the  Church  effected  through 
the  Holy  Ghost  is  definitely  brought  to  a  conclusion 
by  the  Holy  Ghost,  it  has  been  supposed  that 
there  will  ensue  a  period  of  complete  salvation 
among  members  of  the  Church,  which  will  be  a 
Kingdom  of  the  Holy  Ghost. 

This  Kingdom  of  the  Spirit  has  been  pictured 
as  a  Sovereignty,  in  which  Christ  will  speak  to 
and  direct  each  individual  soul ;  and  it  has  been 
mistakenly  added  that  in  days  of  the  rule  of  that 
Sovereignty,  the  Holy  Ghost  will  so  instruct  men 
individually,  that  there  will  be  no  further  need 
either  to  believe  in  dogma  nor  obey  the  authority 
of  the  Church. 

On  account  of  this  misinterpretation  of  doctrine, 
the  Montanists,  Joachimites,  Anabaptists,  Friends, 
Irvingites,  and  many  others  have  believed  that  a 
Third  Dispensation  of  pure  Religious  Individualism 
would  succeed  the  Orthodox  Collectivism  in  Faith 
and  Discipline,  whose  acceptance  was  required  of 
Christians  with  one  mind  and  one  heart. 

There  is  an  element  of  truth  in  the  thought  that 
there  are  Days  of  Promise  before  the  Church  in 
which  the  Holy  Ghost  will  consummate  His  Kingdom 


118         THE  GENIUS  OF  THE  "TO  BE" 

in  individual  souls.  But  the  idea  that  the  Dispensa- 
tion of  the  Holy  Spirit  shall  happen  in  independence 
of  the  Church,  is  an  absolute  error,  contradicting 
not  only  the  entire  revelation  of  the  Holy  Spirit 
in  the  Bible,  but  also  the  Church's  Teaching  about 
the  nature  of  the  Spirit  of  God,  and  of  Its  perpetual 
procession  from  the  Father  and  the  Son. 

The  Reign  of  the  Spirit  will  consist  not  in  defiance 
of  the  Church,  but  in  so  perfect  an  obedience  to 
the  Church  that  obedience  will  stimulate  freedom 
rather  than  take  freedom  away.  The  great  musician 
is  free  in  his  creations  through  aid  of  the  restrictions 
of  bars,  and  octaves,  and  harmonies,  the  observance 
of  the  rules  of  which  to  perfection  constitute  his 
strength.  The  artist,  in  obeying  the  rules  of  per- 
spective ;  in  faithfully  obeying  Nature  as  his  inspira- 
tion ;  and  the  laws  of  beauty,  colour,  and  proportion 
in  composition ;  gains  the  freedom  which  is  the 
mastery  in  his  art.  That  poet  alone  is  great,  master- 
ful, and  free  who  is  minutely  obedient  to  the  laws 
of  harmony,  sound,  and  versification. 

Likewise,  the  Holy  Ghost  in  the  individual  soul 
sets  Faith  and  Obedience  of  Mind  and  of  Will  to 
the  Church  as  the  restrictions  through  which  alone 
the  soul  rises  in  the  Spirit's  might,  triumphant, 
masterful,  and  free. 


SERVICE  IS  FREEDOM  119 


XIII. 

The   basis  of  the  doctrhic   of  tJie  Moral  Requirement 
of  Obedience  is  in  the  very  Life  of  tJie  Godhead. 

The  Holy  Ghost  is  thus  the  individualising  prin- 
ciple in  the  experience  of  the  life  of  every  Christian. 

As  has  been  alluded  to  previously,  the  teaching 
of  the  ]\Iontanists  and  Joachimites,  and  Anabaptists 
and  Irvingites,  about  a  Third  Kingdom,  in  which 
the  Holy  Ghost  would  resume  to  Himself  from  the 
Church  the  authority  formerly  exercised  vicariously 
in  His  name  by  the  Church,  and  through  His 
indwelling  would  make  each  soul  of  man  an  individual 
and  autonomous  Church  to  itself,  are  a  contorted 
statement  of  a  supreme  truth.  The  Reign  of  the 
Holy  Ghost  is  distinct  from  the  Reign  of  the 
Father  and  the  Son,  just  as  His  personality  is 
equally  distinct  from  that  of  the  Father  and  the  Son. 

But  all  these  were  in  error  in  their  belief  that  the 
distinctness  of  the  new  kingdom  of  the  Spirit,  which 
is  to  extend  its  dominion  over  the  world,  meant 
that  this  New  Kingdom  was  to  be  in  the  least  degree 
separate  from  the  Church  of  Christ.  As  the  Holy 
Ghost  proceeds  eternally  from  the  Father  and  the 
Son,  so  equally  must  the  Life  of  His  Kingdom 
remain  in  eternal  dependence  upon  the  Kingdom 
of  Christ,  namely,  the  Church,  and  of  God  the  Father, 
namely,  the  Moral  Law. 

That  in  yielding  obedience  is  to  be  found  the 
only  perfect  freedom,  may  sound  a  paradox  or  a 
mystery ;  but  it  is  a  myster\'  resting  upon  the  basic 
life   of  the    Godhead,   in    which    the    free    Spirit    of 


120         THE  GENIUS  OF  THE  "TO  BE" 

God  itself  is  eternally  bound,  and  is  still  eternally 
free  ;  and  is  divinely  bound  in  the  order  of  its 
procession  to  the  Father  and  the  Son.  It  cannot, 
then,  surprise  us  that,  in  true  religious  freedom, 
the  life  of  unique  individualism  is  dependent  upon 
persistent  obedience  to  the  Divinity,  and  to  the 
Collective  Will  of  humanity  organised  in  the  Church 
of  God, 


XIV. 

Sacrifice  is  the  Gate  to  Life^  and  not  to  Death.  The 
Intellect^  no  less  than  the  Wi/I,  is  only  truly 
free  through  Sacrifice,  The  New  Jerusalem  is 
the  City  of  all  who  have  performed  their  Spiritual 
Sacrifice  in  union  zvith  the  Paschal  Sacrifice  of 
Christy  who  is  called  the  Lamb  of  God. 

An  intelligent  worship  of  God,  securing  blessedness 
for  the  worshipper,  is  the  inner  reality  expressed  in 
all  Christian  Institutions,  which  are  simply  acts  of 
Sacrificial  Worship  cast  into  an  ordered  form.  To 
believe  with  the  Church,  that  is,  with  mankind  in 
solidarity,  is  an  act  of  sacrificial  worship  or  obedience 
of  the  mind.  To  accept  the  rule  of  the  Church  is 
an  act  of  sacrificial  worship  of  the  will.  Christian 
Individualism  enters,  immediately  the  whole  of  our 
assent  to  dogma  become  an  individual,  a  self-coloured, 
a  self-characteristic,  assent.  It  enters  when  our 
submission  to  the  Church's  ordinances  is  intelligent, 
voluntary,  personally  thought-out,  and  interpreted 
— in  a  word — when  our  submission  is  individual  and 
free. 


UNION  OF  HEAVEN  WITH  EARTH       121 

Our  obedience  and  our  freedom  now  become  one 
and  the  same ;  for  we  now  are  wont  to  exercise  our 
individual  freedom  with  the  Church  rather  than 
against  the  Church. 

Such  freedom  is  inspired  and  aided  by  the  mighty 
Spirit  of  God,  who  sheds  upon  our  minds  and  souls 
some  of  the  beauty  proper  to  the  Church  of  Christ. 

Moreover,  the  very  colour  and  characteristics  of 
our  own  individuality  are  impressed  upon  the 
memory  and  substance  of  the  Living  Church. 
Although  this  Holy  City  descends  from  Heaven  to 
Earth,  it  is  nevertheless  a  divine  remaining-place  for 
every  name,  and  every  character,  and  every  individual, 
which  have  been  offered  in  spiritual  sacrifice  to  God, 
in  real  community  of  thought  and  action,  with  the 
sacrifice  of  the  Lamb  of  God  whose  Bride  is  the  New 
Jerusalem. 


Q 


PART  V 

CHRIST,  THE  MYSTICAL  SELF 

OF  MAN 


CHRIST,  THE  MYSTICAL  SELF 

OF  MAN 

"  Now  also  Christ  shall  be  magnified  in  my  body,  whether 
it  be  by  life  or  by  death. 

"For  to  me  to  live  is  Christ,  and  to  die  is  gain.  .  .  . 

"  I  am  in  a  strait  betwixt  two,  having  a  desire  to  depart  and 
to  be  with  Christ ;  which  is  far  better. 

"  Nevertheless  to  abide  in  the  flesh  is  more  needful  for  yon." 
—St  Paul. 

I. 

The  Mystical^'  Sons  of  God''  are  they  zuho  report  all 
the  advancing  Knowledge  of  the  Universe^  and 
all  the  advancing  aspirations  of  the  Heart  of  Man  ^ 
before  the  Throne  of  God. 

Filial  Piety  towards  God  of  the  type  truly  named 
"  Catholic,"  is  the  acknowledgment  of  the  sonship 
of  the  entire  Creation,  in  a  common  brotherhood  of 
all  that  is  in  the  earth  and  stars,  along  with  our  own 
sonship  of  God,  revealed  in  Christ. 

Mystical  piety  has  been  called  the  one  orthodox 
individualism;  and  in  all  instances  of  its  genuine 
development  it  is  so  clear-cut  and  precious  that  its 
possession  compensates  Churchmen  for  their  absence 
of  individual  freedom  in  defining  theological  dogmas. 

They  who  claim  the  individual  right  to  interpret 

125 


126  CHRIST,  THE  MYSTICAL  SELF  OF  MAN 

the  Scriptures  may  be  right  or  wrong ;  but  in  exer- 
cising this  right  they  have  to  content  themselves 
with  a  mere  multiplicity  of  interpretations  of  Scrip- 
ture, a  mere  diversity  of  theological  opinions,  and 
with  a  series  of  scarcely  varying  religious  Sects ; 
while,  of  rich  individual  Ideals  of  life  they  own  but 
few,  and  are  wont  to  preach  a  religion  of  a  dull  and 
conventional  mediocrity. 

Christian  Mysticism  was  that  beautiful  flower  of 
personal  life  which  sprang  up  out  of  the  midst  of 
Christian  uniformity.  In  its  normal  state  it  never 
broke  away  from  the  bonds  of  Church  Unity,  and 
received  as  much  encouragement  from  Orthodoxy 
on  account  of  its  healthful  individualism,  as  heresy 
received  discouragement  on  account  of  its  diseased 
individualism. 

The  eternal  Charter  of  Mystical  Piety  (which  is 
thus  the  same  thing  as  Catholic  Individualism)  is 
the  orthodox  dogma  of  God  the  Holy  Ghost.  All 
the  dogmas  of  the  Church  differ  from  each  other,  not 
only  as  theological  statements  about  different  truths 
of  God,  but  also  as  including  allusions  to  different 
phases  of  the  life  of  humanity,  to  the  secret  of  which 
each  dogma  of  the  Church  affords  the  exclusive 
Key. 

The  Scriptural  mark  in  evidence  of  individual 
experience  of  the  mystical  Sonship  of  God,  revealed 
in  the  dogma  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  is  that  the  whole 
life  of  its  favoured  recipient  is  as  the  singing  of  the 
New  Song,  commanded  in  the  Bible  by  the  Holy 
Ghost,  in  honour  of  the  new  Glories  of  the  Creation, 
and  of  the  Redemption,  newly  revealed  in  every  new 
Era  of  Mankind. 


THE  NEW  SONG  127 

"I  will  create,"  says  God  in  Isaiah,  "a  New 
Heaven  and  a  New  Earth."  The  Song  of  the  New 
Heaven  is  a  recording  of  the  vision  of  the  Word  of 
God  in  that  Sevenfold  New  Heaven  which  the 
angels  of  Natural  Science  have  revealed  to  a  Seven- 
fold New  Earth  of  the  social  aspirations  of  to-day. 

He  who  is  the  true  mystical  Son  of  God  is  known 
through  that  whereby  the  Spirit  reveals  to  him  the 
Universe  and  Man  anew  in  the  Reason  of  God. 
The  mystical  Son  of  God  is  he  who  loves  Nature  in 
that  greater  vision  of  Nature  of  the  modern  intellect ; 
it  is  he  who  loves  Humanity  upon  the  vistas  of  every 
current  and  living  hope,  ideal,  and  prophecy,  within 
the  living  Hearts  of  Men. 

II. 

In  what  manner  St  John  did  not  "  taste  death^^  until 
he  saw  the  Son  of  Man  cojiiing  in  His  Kingdom, 

A  French  Abb6  has  written  a  learned  commentary 
on  St  John's  Gospel,  in  which  he  concurs  with  the 
opinion  of  many  critics  outside  the  Church  that  none 
of  the  Gospel  was  written  by  St  John. 

If  that  be  true,  the  significance  is  totally  different 
from  what  the  Abb6  seems  to  suppose.  We  are  all 
wont  to  call  St  Paul  an  example  of  a  Christ-man  who 
had  not  seen  Christ;  but  these  critics  would  make  the 
writer  of  the  Fourth  Gospel  a  Christ-man  of  a  more 
remarkable  type  than  was  St  Paul. 

Christ  said  during  His  lifetime :  "  There  be  some 
standing  here  which  shall  not  taste  of  death,  till  they 
see  the  Son  of  Man  coming  in  His  Kingdom  "  (Matt. 
xvi.  28). 


128    CHRIST,  THE  MYSTICAL  SELF  OF  MAN 

This  is  a  difficult  text,  unless  the  very  simple 
explanation  is  given  that  it  refers  to  St  John's  sight 
of  the  Return  of  Christ  recorded  in  the  Apocalypse, 
and  to  St  John's  vision  of  the  place  of  Christ  recorded 
in  the  Fourth  Gospel.  St  Matthew  himself,  in  a  sense, 
saw  Christ  again,  when  he  was  inspired  to  write  his 
Gospel ;  but  St  John  is  specially  marked  out  by  Our 
Lord,  in  a  tradition  recorded  in  the  2ist  chapter  of 
the  Fourth  Gospel,  where  Christ  says  to  Peter :  "  If  I 
will  that  he  tarry  till  I  come,  what  is  that  to  thee  ?  " 
(verse  22). 

While  the  John  of  the  Gospels  is  not  recorded  as 
giving  evidence  of  the  great  insight  and  culture  of 
the  writer  of  the  Fourth  Gospel,  nor  even  of  the 
ability  and  genius  for  writing  the  Apocalypse,  yet  it 
is  conceivable  that  Christ  foresaw  an  impending 
recoil  in  St  John's  remembrance  of  his  Master  which 
was  about  to  be  the  occasion  of  the  Disciple's  vision 
of  His  Lord  in  that  Glory  which  is  indeed  everywhere 
of  Christ,  and  in  that  Second  Coming  of  the  Lord 
which  is  always  beginning  to  be. 

In  this  case  the  whole  of  the  amazing  consciousness 
of  Christ  recorded  in  the  Apocalypse,  in  the  Fourth 
Gospel,  and  in  the  Epistles,  may,  in  all  likelihood, 
have  been  the  expression  of  the  Spiritual  Return  of 
Christ  to  St  John.  The  question,  then,  of  the  setting 
together  of  the  present  form  of  the  Fourth  Gospel 
does  not  concern  us,  for  in  any  case  its  entire  inspira- 
tion would  have  been  apostolic. 

If,  however,  the  Fourth  Gospel  is  a  creation  of  the 
Sub-apostolic  Age,  this  would  point  to  a  miracle 
which  would  transcend  the  conversion  of  St  Paul. 
For  its  creator  would  have  been  a  veritable  second- 


THE  RETURN  TO  ST  JOHN  129 

self  of  the  Messiah,  being  possessed  of  the  Messianic 
consciousness  of  the  transcendent  power  of  God  in 
Man,  in  a  manner  the  like  of  which  history  shows  not 
the  least  signs  of  another  instance. 

Hoping  as  we  do  for  "  all  things  "  through  Christ, 
we  may  dare  to  look  forward  to  interpreters  of  our 
Lord's  Mind  and  revealers  of  His  Authority  and 
Power  of  equal  literary  inspiration  with  the  Writer 
of  this  Gospel,  before  the  end  of  time.  But  this  is 
not  conceivable  before  the  Age  of  the  Holy  Spirit 
shall  have  arrived ;  and,  even  then,  such  an  event 
could  only  happen  in  the  way  of  making  spiritual 
transcriptions  from  the  Gospels. 

I  do  not,  then,  so  much  object  to  the  conclusions  of 
the  critics,  as  to  the  remarkable  want  of  spiritual 
imagination  in  which  they  draw  those  conclusions. 
If  they  say  that  the  Fourth  Gospel  is  entirely  the 
result  of  a  New  Inspiration,  let  them  accept  the 
conclusions  as  to  the  possible  inspiration  of  Humanity 
which  this  result  would  entail.  It  would  point  to  a 
remarkable  Return  of  Christ  to  human  consciousness 
nearly  one  hundred  years  after  His  lifetime.  On 
the  whole,  it  seems  more  credible  that  St  John 
should  himself  have  experienced  a  great  spiritual 
recoil,  which  would  have  made  our  Lord's  prophecy 
in  the  Gospels  definitely  fulfilled  when  St  John  saw 
Christ  coming  in  the  Glory  of  His  Kingdom,  and 
gave  a  limited  human  utterance  to  this  great  spiritual 
event  in  the  Apocalypse,  the  Fourth  Gospel,  and  in 
the  three  Epistles  attributed  to  him. 


130    CHRIST,  THE  MYSTICAL  SELF  OF  MAN 


in. 

Every  Saint  who  loves  all  Nature  and  respects  all 
Meny  allows  Christ  to  hasten  His  approach  to 
bless  the  World. 

Men  of  the  Spirit  were  men  who  felt  towards  their 
fellows  in  a  noble  and  universally  human  manner. 
St  Paul  was  equally  sympathetic  towards  man  and 
towards  the  Spirit  of  God,  and  by  his  practical  com- 
prehension of  the  virtue  of  the  Son  of  God,  he  greatly 
aided  in  shortening  the  times  which  separated  the 
world  from  the  day  of  the  Coming  of  the  Lord. 
St  Francis,  in  his  human  attitude  of  sympathy 
towards  Nature,  hastened  on  the  day  of  the  recon- 
ciliation of  all  things,  and  of  all  men,  in  the  Sacred 
Passion  of  Christ.  In  the  like  manner,  a  Shelley, 
whose  humanly  catholic  sympathies  with  the  Universe 
were  supplemented  by  the  divinely  catholic  sym- 
pathies of  the  Cross,  would  bring  the  world  very  near 
the  precincts  of  the  Visible  Return  of  Christ. 

There  is  order  and  process  in  the  Kingdom  of 
Heaven,  as  there  is  order  and  process  in  the 
Kingdoms  of  the  Earth.  There  are  many  who  belong 
to  the  Church  of  God  who  yet  have  not  prepared 
themselves  to  receive  the  plenitude  of  the  Spirit  of 
God. 

Not  that  God  is  arbitrary  in  His  gifts  of  grace. 
While  grace  is  freely  given,  it  is  given  in  exact 
proportion  as  our  own  hindering  self-limitations  are 
removed  from  us.  If  I  am  compassionate  only  to 
ten  men,  then  I  have  limited  myself  from  receiving 
the  Spirit  of  God  beyond  the  small  proportion  that 


THE  SPIRITUAL  INTERCHANGE       131 

my  narrow  Christianity  stands  for.  But  if  I  am  com- 
passionate with  all  men  of  all  creeds,  of  all  races,  of 
all  countries,  of  all  climes,  of  all  conditions  of  life ; 
and  also  obey  the  Church  as  the  symbol  and  medium 
through  which  the  gifts  of  the  Spirit  come ;  then  the 
Spirit  of  the  Lord  will  rest  upon  me  in  the  pleni- 
tude of  His  healing  might ;  and  through  my  mere 
acceptance  of  all  things  in  the  world  as  reconciled  in 
Christ,  the  Spirit  of  God  will  bring  back  the  might  of 
Christ  to  conquer  the  world. 


IV. 

God  acts  through  the  laws  of  the  Universe^  because 
the  laws  of  the  Universe  are  God's  laws :  There- 
fore the  consummation  of  the  Kingdom,  proceeds 
through  the  operation  of  universal  aud  eternal 
lawSy  to  break  which  would  destroy  the  character 
of  God. 

Why  were  there  no  other  St  Pauls  after  the  first 
one?  Why,  to  use  the  Apostle's  own  phraseology, 
did  not  Christ  return  to  the  world  among  St  Paul's 
contemporaries,  or  on  a  subsequent  day,  and  repro- 
duce the  mystery  of  the  alter- Christus  in  the  Disciple, 
in  a  Kingdom  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  amid  those  who 
left  all  to  follow  their  Master  and  were  faithful  to 
Him  even  in  martyrdom?  Of  the  thousands  and 
millions  of  devout  Christians,  why  were  there,  with 
a  possible  exception  of  St  Francis  of  Assisi,  no 
examples  of  Spiritual  Interchange? 

The  answer  must  proceed  from  a  religious,  or 
"  Theistic,"   psychology.     All  saintly  lives  were  in  a 


132    CHRIST,  THE  MYSTICAL  SELF  OF  MAN 

sense  attempted  interchanges  of  human  personalities 
with  that  of  Christ,  and  the  whole  of  Christian 
Mysticism  was  the  flower  of  the  partial  attainment 
of  this  holy  interchange.  Yet  in  each  instance  of 
mystical  intercommunion,  the  inexorable  law  of 
psychology  came  into  effect  that  the  Holy  Spirit's 
operation  was  limited  by  both  the  intelligence  and 
the  character,  in  other  words,  the  humanity,  of  the 
recipient.  Had  not  this  been  true  likewise  of  every 
page  of  the  inspired  text  of  the  Holy  Scriptures  ? 

As  the  Bible  is  to  be  studied  as  the  education  of 
humanity  in  comprehending  the  thought  of  Christ, 
so  is  the  history  of  the  Church  to  be  studied  as  the 
ordered  and  methodic  education  of  humanity  in 
comprehending  the  possession  of  Christ ;  and  the 
amount  of  the  immaturity  of  this  education,  none  of 
which,  received  through  definitions  of  dogmas  or  a 
growing  appreciation  of  the  Christ  of  history,  is  ever 
lost  to  the  world,  is  the  inexorable  limitation  on  the 
human  side  of  an  operation  of  a  Power  which,  in 
itself,  is  illimitable  and  divinely  free. 

It  was  possible  to  St  Paul  to  receive  a  kind  of 
total  impression  of  Christ's  personality  without  the 
intervening  World-Education  which  was  necessary 
to  those  who  were  not  near  enough  to  receive  such 
a  whole  impression.  To  the  rest,  Christ  was  only 
known  discursively,  through  symbols,  images  of 
speech,  and  partially  apprehended  accounts  of  His 
Life  and  Character,  until  such  time  as  when,  the 
Gospel  of  the  Lord  having  been  preached  to  and 
made  at  home  with  every  creature,  the  education  in 
the  comprehension  of  Christ  the  Lord  shall  have 
grown  complete. 


CONVERSION  133 


V. 


The  ordinary  conversion  is  only  the  beginning  of  the 
life  of  Grace.  Perfect  conversion  embraces  our 
relation  to  the  Universe.  It  is  a  Substantial 
Change^  a?id  hastens  the  Day  of  the  Lord. 

Verbalism  is  a  serious  menace  to  the  Church  of 
Christ.  If  the  beginnings  of  religious  experience  are 
described  in  words  which  lead  men  to  suppose 
that  they  have  reached  the  End  of  this  experience, 
the  incentive  to  advance  thither  will  be  taken  away. 
A  corrective  of  Verbalism  may  be  studied  in  the 
life  of  the  Apostle  of  the  Gentiles. 

St  Paul's  experience  of  the  Supernatural  was  all 
in  the  nature  of  the  interchange  of  his  personality 
with  that  of  Christ.  This  first  happened  when  the 
Apostle  was  smitten  with  the  light  of  Christ's 
personality  on  the  road  to  Damascus.  In  whatever 
way  the  impression  of  Christ's  personality  may  have 
first  come  to  him,  St  Paul's  vivid  assurance  of  the  fact 
of  the  Resurrection  of  Christ  from  the  grave,  seems  to 
have  been  solely  founded  on  his  own  real  experience 
of  the  presence  of  a  personality  more  masterful  than 
his  own,  which  at  times  so  controlled  his  life  that 
Paul's  own  personality  became  the  mere  instrument  of 
Christ's.  When  the  Apostle  writes  that  he  himself 
lives  not,  but  Christ  is  as  the  changeling  who  has 
come  to  live  in  his  place,  and  bring  forth  judgment 
on  the  world,  he  is  not  writing  of  conventional 
morals,  or  of  the  fact  that  he  is  living  the  converted 
life.     He  is,  on  the  contrary,  speaking  of  an  actual 


134    CHRIST,  THE  MYSTICAL  SELF  OF  MAN 

interchange  of  personality  with  Christ,  which  more 
than  anything  else  in  the  New  Testament  brings  us 
near  the  goal  of  history  and  explains  the  Parousia. 
The  terrors  of  the  light  on  the  road  to  Damascus 
were  a  rehearsal  to  St  Paul  of  what  is  to  happen  on 
the  Day  of  the  Lord.  The  spiritual  Second  Coming 
of  Christ  meant,  in  his  teaching,  the  real  interchange 
of  Christ's  heart  with  the  hearts  of  men,  since  the 
Apostle  never  forgets  that  to  see  Christ  is  to  change 
into  His  likeness. 


VI. 

St  PmiVs  Conversion  possessed  a  Cosmic  Realism  about 
it  which  sets  it  forth  as  a  foreboding  of  the  future 
Sacred  Interchange  of  Humanity  with  the  Life  of 
Christ. 

The  tremendous  impression  of  a  personality  as  of 
Christ's,  greater  than  one's  own,  in  such  a  manner 
that  it  assails,  conquers,  subdues,  and  is  interchanged 
with,  the  lesser  personality,  is  a  veritable  coming  of 
the  Holy  Ghost  to  the  individual  soul.  It  is  only 
modern  psychology  which  has  made  the  realism  of 
St  Paul's  experience  intelligible.  Cases  of  the  altera- 
tion of  personality,  and  of  the  interchange  of  person- 
ality, are  well  known  to  psychologists,  and  add  their 
testimony  that  St  Paul  never  spoke  about  mere 
moral  changes  in  his  life,  such  as  happened  to  his 
converts,  but  about  realistic  psychological  changes  ^ 
which  amounted  to  a  true  interchange  of  personality. 

^  The  first  suggestion,  or  impression  of  Christ  on  St  Paul, 
probably  came  through  the  saintly  death  of  Stephen,  and  from 
him  backwards  to  those  who  had  known  Christ. 


ST  PAUL  AND  CHRIST  135 

As  to  what  this  interchange  effected,  the  life  of 
St  Paul  must  speak  for  itself.  Not  only  was  his 
personality  in  one  sense  not  absorbed  ;  but  it  remained 
or  became  one  of  the  most  powerfully  marked  human 
personalities  in  history.  St  Paul,  it  should  be  said, 
attained  to  that  particular  aspect  of  Christ  which 
was  the  compliment  to  St  Paul  himself.  His  was  an 
individualistic  taking  to  himself  of  the  personality  of 
Christ ;  the  Apostle  being,  as  it  were,  the  understudy 
of  the  chief  person  in  the  Christ  Play,  who  retained 
nevertheless  all  his  own  characteristics,  interpreting 
or  rendering  Christ's  character  while  preaching  to  the 
Gentiles. 

Ordinary  conversions  are  blessed  realities ;  but 
are  only  the  beginnings  of  that  New  Universe  of 
Redemption  which  is  as  great  as  the  Old  Universe  of 
the  Creation.  In  a  certain  sense  St  Paul  forestalled 
the  long  experience  of  Humanity  in  reaching,  through 
the  whole  of  its  knowledge  and  power,  towards  an 
interchange  between  its  own  mind,  soul,  and  body,  and 
that  of  its  Redeemer. 

St  Paul,  therefore,  is  one  whose  experience  is  rather 
of  the  Future  than  of  the  Past.  He  is  "  conversion  " 
terminated  in  "substantial  change,"  and  therefore 
converts  to  Christ  must  see  how  they  too  must 
experience  the  conversion  of  the  whole  Cosmos  within 
their  own  conversion,  or  otherwise  they  can  never  be 
the  instruments  through  which  Christ  in  them  is 
shown  forth  before  all  men  and  all  worlds. 


136    CHRIST,  THE  MYSTICAL  SELF  OF  MAN 


VII. 

The  Saints  zvere  not  only  Good  Men^  but  also  Artists 
of  Reality^  in  the  manner  in  ivhich  they  set  forth 
in  the  World  the  So?t  of  God.  The  chief  Lesson  of 
the  Saints  is  that  we  be  as  original  as  the  Saints 
in  following  Christy  in  a  vianner  proper  to  our- 
selves. 

In  Saintly  Mysticism  the  "  Manifest "  Presence  of 
Christ  has  flowed  in  many  beautiful  ways  out  of  the 
Real  Presence.  The  best  known  of  these  are  the 
instances  of  the  Stigmata  of  St  Francis ;  the  mani- 
festations of  the  Sacred  Heart  in  the  instance  of 
St  Catherine  of  Siena,  St  Teresa,  and  Blessed 
Margaret  Mary  Alacoque.  To  attempt  to  copy  liter- 
ally the  type  of  Devotion  which  ensued  from  visions 
like  those  of  the  Sacred  Heart,  would  be  a  fatal  error  ; 
but  the  principle  remains  valid,  that  the  Devotion  to 
the  Sacred  Heart  stands  for  an  aspiration  towards 
making  manifest  the  hidden  Presence  of  the  God- 
man  ;  and  it  would  be  well  if  the  spiritual  energies 
of  the  Church  were  turned  in  thought  and  prayer 
towards  a  vivid  conception  of  the  Divine  Man  clothed 
with  the  whole  world's  new  experience  of  what  is 
best  in  Humanity,  and  made  ever-living  by  the 
Immortal  Spirit  of  God. 

The  Sacramental  Presence  of  Christ  in  the  Church 
is  an  unceasing  Fountain  of  Life  which  is  destined  to 
flow  without  fail  until  the  re-enactment  of  the  Times 
of  Christ  upon  Earth,  though  in  the  glory  of  universal 
recognition  rather  than  in  the  former  humiliation. 

We  must  approach  His  new  manifestation  through 


ST  FRANCIS  137 

the  Science  of  His  Saints  rather  than  through  that 
of  Worldings. 

They  who  attempt  to  imitate  the  Saints  are  no 
Saints,  because  the  Saints  imitated  no  other  Saints, 
but  only  the  Son  of  God.  As  each  Saint  both 
conceived  of  Christ,  and  also  manifested  Christ,  in  a 
manner  proper  to  himself;  so  they  who  understand 
the  Saints  will  conceive  of  Christ  in  a  manner  proper 
to  themselves,  and  manifest  Him  in  a  manner  which 
shall  thrill  the  hearts  of  the  Age  in  which  we  live 
with  a  Melody  proper  to  themselves  alone. 


VIII. 

St  Francis  understood  that  because  we  can  call  God^ 
"  Our  Father  I'''  this  implies  that,  through  Christ, 
God  will  call  all  ifiankind  some  day,  '*  My  Son  I " 

To  me,  Francis  of  Assisi  is  the  greatest  of  Doctors 
of  the  Mediaeval  Church.  He  was  the  pathfinder 
who  discovered  that  Christian  humility  might  dare 
to  simplify  all  theology  and  all  religion  as  the 
"  Conformity,"  the  personal  life-likeness  to  the  earthly 
Christ. 

In  the  illusion  of  this  Life-and-Passion-Play,  the 
whole  earth  was  his  scene  of  Palestine ;  and  Francis 
himself,  more  crucially  than  is  ever  acted  at  Ober- 
Ammergau,  took  the  part  of  the  "  Christus  "  in  a  life- 
long "  Miracle  Play."  He  had  comprehended  what  was 
the  simplest  and  singlest  of  "  Messages  "  that  Heaven 
had  ever  sent  to  Earth.  He  knew  that  the  Gospel 
was  not  philosophy  nor  theology ;  but  God,  through 
His  Son,  speaking  Himself  to  the  heart  of  man,  with 

S 


138    CHRIST,  THE  MYSTICAL  SELF  OF  MAN 

the  directness  and  intimacy  of  a  lover  to  a  beloved, 
of  an  intimate  friend  to  an  intimate  friend.  A  new 
significance  in  daily  usages  and  customs  of  social  life 
to  him  stood  in  the  place  of  philosophy  and  theology, 
and  sometimes  even  of  oral  teaching.  The  religion 
for  mankind  then  grew  to  be  a  life-long  act  of  filial 
piety  learned  of  Christ  towards  God.  In  the  mysti- 
cal friendship  that  identified  him  with  the  Son  of  God, 
he  reverenced  Nature  with  a  holy  passion,  with  a 
son's  reverence  for  a  loving  Father's  handicraft.  He 
respected  humanity,  and  all  individual  men,  as  of  the 
joint  heirship,  called  with  him,  to  the  Messianic  Feast 
of  the  History  of  the  World.  He  and  they  were  of 
faith's  brotherhood  with  the  eternal  Son  of  God. 
St  Francis  knew,  because  we  can  dare  to  pray  to  God 
as  "  Our  Father ! "  that  this  implies  the  hope  that 
some  day  God  will  call  humanity,  "My  Son  ! " 


IX. 

TJie   Holy  Eucharist   was   intentionally  instituted  to 
be  the  nieditun  of  the  Parousia. 

No  one  has  ever  more  intimately  associated 
together  Faith  and  Life,  Doctrine  and  Deeds,  than 
Christ.  In  order  to  worship  Him  with  the  com- 
manded worship  of  our  minds,  we  should  know 
what  we  are  about  when  we  approach  His  Holy 
Table.  We  go  there  not  for  an  indefinite  but  for 
a  well-defined  purpose  ;  a  purpose  being  a  tendency 
to  an  object,  a  clear  and  final  cause.  The  clear 
and  final  cause  of  our  approach  to  the  Holy  Table 
is  that  we  may  so  partake  of  the  substance  of  His 


BELOVED  DISCIPLES  139 

own  spiritual  Being,  and  the  life-characteristics  of 
His  Life  revealed  in  the  Gospels,  that  we  may  come 
therefrom  nourished  by  sacred  assimilation  into  His 
True  Disciples  ;  spiritually  sitting  with  His  original 
Disciples  at  Table  with  Him  ;  taking  to  heart  the 
Last  Discourses  recorded  in  the  Gospel  of  St  John, 
and  putting  them  into  practice  by  becoming  His 
Beloved  Disciples  one  and  all.  It  does  not  suffice 
us  to  say  in  general  that  we  are  partaking  of  the 
Bread  of  Immortality,  unless  we  are  interested 
enough  to  learn  of  His  own  words  what  the  thought 
and  life  of  the  Perpetual  Communion  between  our- 
selves and  Him,  entailed  through  His  Gift  of  Himself 
to  us,  ought  to  be. 

We  are  called  to  be  branches  of  Himself  who 
is  the  True  Vine  of  the  World's  Life.  We  are 
bidden  to  be  as  lifelike — which  He  was — as  the  Vine's 
branches  are  lifelike,  and  similar  to  the  Vine  Tree. 
We  are  called  to  be  so  lifelike  unto  Him  in  heart, 
soul,  and  mind,  that  we  pray  and  worship,  not  in 
our  own  heart,  mind,  and  soul,  but  in  the  very 
mood  in  which,  in  heart,  mind,  and  soul  He  the 
Law  of  Life  has  prayed  before  us ;  so  that  He 
may  pray  in  us  and  we  pray  in  Him.  It  is  this 
prayer  of  ours,  in  His  prayer  for  the  Kingdom, 
referred  to  in  John  xv.  7,  which  shall  assuredly 
be  heard. 

Bishop  Westcott  recognised  this  supreme  truth 
in  his  commentary  on  this  text,  where  he  says : 
"  According  to  the  true  reading,  ['  Ye  shall  ask 
what  ye  will ']  is  equivalent  to  '  Ask  whatsoever  ye 
will.'  The  petitions  of  the  true  disciples  are  echoes 
(so  to  speak)  of  Christ's  words.     As  He  has  spoken 


140    CHRIST,  THE  MYSTICAL  SELF  OF  MAN 

so  they  speak.  Their  prayer  is  only  some  fragment 
of  His  teaching  transformed  into  a  supplication,  and 
so  it  will  necessarily  be  heard." 

The  Evangelical  does  not  object  to  be  taken  back 
to  Palestine  to  be  with  Christ  as  in  His  fellowship 
with  men  during  all  His  lifetime.  The  true  Catholic 
doctrine  of  the  Eucharist  meant  that  we  could 
walk  nigh  to  Christ  even  with  Peter,  James,  and  John. 
Because  scarcely  anyone  ever  thought  that  Catholic 
doctrine  meant  the  secret  of  walking  with  Christ, 
therefore  its  so-called  Sacramentalism  had  fallen  into 
disfavour. 

The  requirements  on  our  part  for  rightly  and 
worthily  participating  in  the  Messianic  Feast  of 
the  Holy  Eucharist,  and  of  our  becoming  thereby 
as  the  Apostles  who  reclined  with  Christ  at  the  Last 
Supper,  are,  first,  that  we  should  recognise  that  Christ 
is  wholly  and  entirely  present  there ;  and  secondly, 
that  with  our  hearts,  souls,  and  minds  we  should 
wholly  and  self-sacrificially  worship  Him. 

The  Holy  Eucharist  is,  and  ever  was,  a  reciprocal 
Sacrifice,  and  without  the  sacrifice  of  ourselves 
to  Christ,  the  Sacrifice  of  Christ  to  us  is  of  no 
avail. 

True  sacrificial  worship  consists  in  the  Sacred 
Interchange  of  a  life  from  God  to  Man,  and  of  a  life 
from  Man  to  God. 

The  meaning  of  the  saying  of  St  Ignatius  of 
Antioch,  that  he  was  as  the  Holy  Bread  to  Christ, 
was  that  the  Eucharist  consisted  not  only  in  bringing 
Christ  as  Bread  to  us,  but  in  the  transmutation  of 
ourselves  into  a  living  Sacrament,  as  of  Bread,  to 
Christ. 


THE  SACRAMENTS  141 


X. 


TJie  Second  Coming  of  Christ  in  a  spiritual  and  real 
manner  is  effected  in  the  Mission  of  the  Holy 
Ghost  added  to,  and  working  through^  and  along 
with,  the  Sacramental  Christ. 

It  avails  nothing  that  we  should  know  the  Scrip- 
tures, unless  we  also  possess  the  real  Christ,  who  is 
witnessed  to  in  them. 

The  purpose  of  the  Holy  Ghost  in  relation  to 
Christ,  is  to  perpetuate  His  Real  Presence  in  the  like 
manner  as — in  relation  to  the  Scriptures — the 
purpose  of  the  Holy  Ghost  is  to  perpetuate  Inspira- 
tion to  each  individual  Soul. 

The  purpose  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  in  relation  to 
Christ  is,  in  fine,  to  make  Christ's  Invisible  Presence 
in  the  World  equally  real,  in  effect,  to  what  His 
Visible  Presence  would  have  been  in  history,  had  it 
not  been  taken  away  from  men  by  His  Death. 

There  is  no  conceivable,  or  at  least  recorded,  way 
in  which  the  perpetuation  of  the  real  Christ  is  possible 
except  in  some  type  of  Sacramental  System.  The 
reason  of  this  must  be  found  in  the  desire  of  Man,  and 
of  the  Spirit  of  God  in  Man,  to  see  and  acknowledge 
and  possess  Christ  in  a  perfectly  equivalent  manner 
to  that  in  which  He  was  seen,  acknowledged,  and 
possessed,  by  His  Disciples  during  His  Earthly  Life. 

The  Sacraments  are  mediums  of  the  perpetuation 
of  the  invisible  Christ  until  His  visible  Coming 
Again. 

To  understand  their  value,  consider  the  vast 
implications    in    the    three    hundred    references    to 


142    CHRIST,  THE  MYSTICAL  SELF  OF  MAN 

the  Second  Coming  of  Christ  in  the  mind  of 
the  writers  of  the  New  Testament.  It  was  the 
general  belief  that  the  appearance  of  Christ  in 
"  Glory,"  that  is,  in  recognition,  would  so  touch  the 
hearts  of  the  Christian  World  which  perpetually 
mourned  His  staying  away,  that  all  Christians  would 
be  quickened  with  immortal  bodily  life. 

We  may  think  in  other  terms  to-day  ;  but  the  belief 
itself  is  equally  existent,  that  were  the  humble  Man 
of  Galilee  again  to  walk  the  Earth,  the  heart  of 
all  humanity  would  be  quickened  as  though  with 
lightning. 

Those  who  talk  of  the  Spiritual  Presence  of  Christ 
in  the  Soul  and  of  the  mere  subjective  Presence  of 
Christ  in  the  Sacrament  of  the  Eucharist,  have  no 
expectations  of  any  such  transformation  of  Human- 
ity in  this  manner,  by  His  virtual  or  real  bodily 
Return. 

This  teaches  the  fact  that  all  men  are  agreed  upon 
the  infinite  difference  between  a  person's  presence  in 
thought  or  commemoration,  and  a  person's  presence 
in  actual  life.  The  Receptionist  wants  the  whole 
Christ  of  Palestine  as  much  as  the  Sacramentarian 
does,  but  he  dare  not,  as  a  Receptionist,  believe  in  it. 
Those,  however,  who,  believing  in  the  Real  Presence, 
retain  the  principle  through  which  they  are  able  to 
conceive  of  a  Return  of  Christ  out  of  the  midst  of 
His  Church,  should  loyally  retain  those  tangible 
symbols  expressive  of  what,  in  the  desire  of  the 
world.  His  Real  Presence  must,  for  ever,  mean  to  the 
world. 

The  foundation  of  the  Sacramental  Life  is  in  the 
whole  Earthly  Life  of  the  Son  of  Man.     Therefore 


SACRAMENTAL  LIFE  143 

the  Sacramental  Life  makes  way  for  an  equal  earthly 
manifestation  in  the  Second  Coming  of  Christ. 

Christ's  bodily  presence  in  Palestine  was  the 
supreme  type  of  sacramental  power  for  all  Time, 
and  our  Sacraments  are  a  mere  gathering  -up  the 
crumbs  of  its  remembrance.  Whosoever  befriended 
Christ  as  man,  like  the  Magdalene,  and  the  Woman 
with  the  precious  ointment,  were  given,  along  with 
His  human  Sympathy,  His  divine  Redemption. 
The  remission  of  sins  went  together  with  the  paraly- 
tic's taking  up  the  bed  and  walking.  The  healing  of 
the  leper  was  the  sacrament  of  the  cleansing  the 
leprosy  of  Sin.  The  friendship  of  the  Lord  with 
Martha  and  Mary  was  solidly  one  with  the  entrance 
of  Martha  and  Mary  into  immortal  Life.  On  the 
harp  of  the  senses  the  Immortal  David  charmed  his 
hearers  to  sing  the  praises  of  the  redeemed  within 
His  Kingdom.  When  He  loved  the  Disciple,  then 
Love  immortalised  the  Disciple,  and  impressed  him 
with  memories  of  the  whole  history  of  the  Word  made 
Flesh.  The  Holy  Church  in  the  Primitive  Ages  was 
nothing  but  the  spiritual  perpetuation  of  the  impres- 
sion upon  hearts  and  lives  of  the  bodily,  inclusive  of 
the  spiritual,  Presence  of  the  Lord.  Christ  once 
delegated  His  power  through  the  breathing  of  the 
Spirit  of  His  fellowship  upon  the  Church  ;  but,  in 
the  Age  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  He  will  resume  the 
same  to  Himself  again  in  a  more  manifest  way 
which  will  recall  to  all  men  the  "days  of  the  Son 
ol  Man." 


144    CHRIST,  THE  MYSTICAL  SELF  OF  MAN 


XL 

The  Prayer-Book  and  the  Bible  teach  the  Substantial 
Return  of  Christ  through  the  Church. 

"  The  Body  and  Blood  of  Christ,  which  are  verily 
and  indeed  taken  and  received  by  the  faithful^ 

The  Book  of  Common  Prayer  contains  the  doctrine 
of  the  Return  of  Christ  in  a  more  comprehensive 
manner  than  that  in  which  I  have  ventured  to  express 
it.  But  no  Prayer-Book  avails  us  anything  until  we 
first  learn  that  God  owns  all  the  substance  of  the 
Universe,  and  that  His  truth,  to  us,  carries  with  it  all 
the  substance  of  the  Universe  in  its  possession. 
Before  we  argue  about  Church  doctrine,  we  ought 
to  reason  a  little  about  Nature  and  its  God. 
Theism,  or  the  Knowledge  of  God  by  Reason,  shows 
the  Substance  behind  the  Shadow  in  all  that  God  has 
made.  Theism  thus  makes  every  precious  word 
revealed  by  Grace  more  precious  to  Humanity  than 
ever  it  was  before.  The  Bible  is  proved  to  be,  not 
Science,  but  more  than  Science,  namely — the  Sub- 
stance which  is  the  Goal  of  Science. 

The  disputes  between  Sacramentarian  and  Recep- 
tionist are  really  based  upon  contending  theories  of 
God,  and  not  upon  the  meaning  of  texts.  If  this 
Universe  is  God's  Universe,  it  is  perfectly  certain 
that  He  uses  His  own  possession,  namely,  His  physical 
world,  in  an  analogous  manner  in  Grace  to  what  He 
does  in  Nature.  It  is  in  Christ  as  the  Reason  of  God, 
that  all  things  "  consist,"  or  stand  together  in  one. 
There  is  but  one  Universe  even  as  there  is  but  one  God. 


THE  SPIRITUAL  IMPRESSION  145 

Therefore  every  word  we  use  about  God  must  have 
the  total  reality  of  the  Universe  within  its  meaning. 
Christ  comes  through  Sacraments,  wJiich  themselves 
are  part  of  the  U?iiverse,  because  the  whole  Universe 
is  His ;  and  He  comes  with  the  total  reality  of  the 
Universe,  because  His  greater  coming  by  Grace 
cannot  be  in  a  less  real  manner  than  the  lesser 
coming  by  Nature.  The  Prayer-Book  must  refer  to  a 
Real  Presence  and  a  real  Return  of  Christ  through 
the  Sacraments,  because  it  would  have  to  destroy  the 
Universe  itself  before  it  could  set  forth  the  manner 
of  His  Coming  in  any  other  than  a  substantial  way. 


xn. 

Because  each  and  every  spiritual  reality  possess  a  bodily 
reality  conjoined  to  it,  the  Church  of  Christ,  which 
is  a  spiritual  fact,  is  a  bodily  reality  too.  Since 
also  it  is  a  perpetuatiofi  of  the  Impression  of  Christ, 
that  part  of  our  sacred  and  united  Thought- 
World  which  is  stamped  with  His  spiritual 
Impression  contains  His  bodily  reality  too. 

The  One  who  is  moving  slowly  through  History, 
at  length  to  be  crowned  and  to  judge  the  world,  is 
being  borne  unto  His  Kingdom  within  the  Church  of 
God.  The  Church,  as  St  Paul  taught,  is  itself  the 
real  Body  and  the  Soul  of  Christ,  who  is  living  in 
hidden  communion,  in  this  His  bodily  dwelling,  with 
all  the  goodness  of  Mankind  :  encouraging  all  human 
effort,  inspiring  what  is  good  and  gracious  in  Song, 
Art,  and  Culture  ;  and  moulding  Civil  Life  and  Social 
Reform  towards  their  Ideals.     The  Church  of  Christ 

T 


146    CHRIST,  THE  MYSTICAL  SELF  OF  MAN 

has  the  Real  Presence  of  Christ,  because  the  Church 
of  Christ  is  the  Real  Presence  of  Christ.  Holy 
Orders  and  the  other  Sacraments  do  not  so  much 
bring  Christ  to  humanity  as  they  bring  Humanity  to 
the  pre-existing  Christ.  From  the  Theistic  view- 
point, the  physical  realism  of  the  Apostolic  Succession, 
the  realism  of  entering  the  Covenant  through  the 
Cleansing  Water,  the  realism  of  consecrated  Bread 
and  Wine,  are  as  necessary  to  the  existence  of  a 
Living  Church  as  the  visible  Universe  and  bodies 
are  necessary,  from  the  view-point  of  right  reason,  to 
the  existence  of  man. 

Let  us  remember  that  the  invisible  Presence  only 
is  ours  because  Mankind  refused  to  allow  place  for 
the  visible  Christ ;  and  the  slaying  of  the  Earthly 
Christ  has  necessitated  the  Sacramental  Christ. 

Thus  it  is  that  the  manner  of  this  Sacrament, 
recalling  our  treatment  of  our  Master,  shows  forth 
the  Death  of  Christ — since  there  is  now  no  Visible 
Christ — until  His  coming  again.  For  the  same 
reason,  there  is  necessarily  the  juristic  realism  of 
Creeds  and  definite  Dogmas,  because  the  prophetic 
presence  of  the  Teacher  was  disallowed  when  Man- 
kind refused  to  hear  Him  speak.  Dogma  but  tells 
us  the  single  fact,  but  the  whole  fact,  of  what  Christ 
is  to  Man.  In  the  Day  of  Judgment,  History  and 
the  Universe  will  be  seen  to  be  the  Dogma  of  the 
Son  of  God  and  Man,  and  Creeds  will  be  necessary 
then  no  longer. 


THE  REAL  PRESENCE  147 


XIII. 

Christ,  living  in  the  Eucharist,  fills  our  Understanding 
with  a  Vision  of  the  Sovereignty  of  God  in  the 
proposition  in  which  we  understand  the  place  of 
God's  Sovereignty,  namely,  the  Natural  Science 
which  reflects  the  Reason  of  God  iji  the  Creation. 

Christ,  to  the  intellect,  is  the  Reason  of  God ;  He 
is  the  Model  of  the  life  and  movement  of  the 
Universe ;  He  is  the  modelling  Power  which  has 
wound  up  the  original  energies  of  Things ;  He  is  the 
Hope,  the  Glory,  the  Destiny  of  mankind. 

Through  His  precious  Wine  in  the  Eucharist  we  are 
filled  with  the  understanding  at  God's  Reign  within 
the  Universe. 

The  Eucharist  is  then  very  near  to  that  blessed 
Vision  which  makes  their  Paradise  to  all  who  share 
in  its  sight,  and  which  the  Saints  on  earth  have 
ever  prayed  to  possess. 

For  in  the  Holy  Eucharist  the  Source  of  Paradise 
has  already  been  in  us ;  though  we  have  not  yet 
possessed  Paradise.  We  must  first  understand  the 
Universe  in  the  measurements  of  the  Natural  Science 
of  God's  Creation,  before  we  can  possibly  conceive  how 
Christ  reigns  there  as  the  Reason  of  God. 

But  when  we  have  measured  all  the  heights,  and 
sounded  all  depths,  in  the  great  World,  then  Christ 
within  us  shall  show  our  minds  His  Reign. 

The  Church  does  not  then  magically  evoke  Christ 
upon  the  Altar;  rather  it  lifts  up  the  gates  which 
prevent  us  from  everywhere  possessing  Him.  How 
could  there  be  no  Real  Presence  in  the  Consecrated 


148    CHRIST,  THE  MYSTICAL  SELF  OF  MAN 

Bread  and  Wine,  when  He  reigns  in  real  presence  in 
all  the  Universe?  Or  is  the  Eucharist  the  only- 
portion  of  the  Cosmos  where  Christ  the  Son  of  God 
is  not  ?  True,  outside  the  Holy  Bread  and  Wine  it 
is  not  given  us  to  receive  Him.  But  this  is  so  not 
because  He  reigns  not  elsewhere,  but  because  in 
this  one  place  the  Gate  which  elsewhere  closes  Him 
from  us  is  momentarily  raised,  that  the  King  of 
Glory  may  enter  us  in  the  measure  in  which  the 
mind,  heart,  and  soul  of  man  have  elected  to  concur 
with,  and  receive  Him. 


XIV. 

The  Holy  Eucharist  being  the  fact  of  the  Sacred 
Interchange  betwee7t  Man  and  Christy  is  absolutely 
conditioned  as  an  Interchange  by  the  measure  in 
which  Man  gives  himself  away  to  Christ. 

Between  God  and  Humanity  there  is  an  everlasting 
give  and  take.  Man  is  asked  to  sacrifice  all  for  God, 
without  knowing  whether  there  will  ever  be  to  him  a 
return.  But  God  graciously  gives  back  to  man  not 
only  Man's  Humanity  again,  but  God's  own  Godhead 
too,  in  so  far  as  it  is  communicable  to  man. 

And  divinity  is  communicable  to  man  in  an 
unthought-of  degree  ;  God  may  give  Himself  to  us  in 
the  exact  proportion  in  which  we  are  suffered  to,  and 
consent  to,  give  ourselves  to  Him.  In  the  Bread  of 
the  Altar  we  receive  God,  but  the  effect  of  the  recep- 
tion is  only  unmeasured  if  we  first  give  ourselves  as  a 
joint  sacrifice  with  the  first  Sacrifice. 

As  we  are  sacrificed,  and  die,  in  our  wills,  to  God  ; 


THE  DIVINE  COVENANT  149 

so,  the  Son  of  God  having  died  for  us,  our  own  life  is 
replaced  by  that  Gift,  in  which,  by  yielding  His  Life, 
it  was  yielded  to  us  as  the  Bread  of  our  lives. 


XV. 

TJie  Holy  Eucharist  is  the  Touching  Medium  throtigh 
which  the  Promises  in  the  Eternal  Covefiant 
between  God  and  Man^  contained  in  the  whole  of 
the  Old  and  New  Testaments^  are  brought  to  pass. 

It  often  takes  mankind  centuries  to  understand  a 
single  word  of  God,  for  the  simple  reason  that  such 
a  word  may  relate  to  some  process  in  the  transmuta- 
tion of  the  whole  Created  Universe. 

We  should  not  lament  that  Christians  are  not  yet 
one  in  the  understanding  of  what  the  institution  of  the 
Eucharist  meant.  Those  who  have  meant  most  by 
it,  in  one  sense,  have  but  too  often  meant  the  least  by 
it  in  another  sense.  All  men's  affirmatives  about 
the  Holy  Eucharist  are  wholly  true :  all  men's 
denials  about  the  Holy  Eucharist  are  wholly  untrue. 

The  Eucharist  must  necessarily  finally  mean,  not 
the  mere  change  of  one  inactive  substance  into 
another  inactive  substance,  but  the  totally  living, 
and  morally  active,  change  of  the  substance  of  the 
body  and  soul  of  humanity  into  the  substance  of  the 
Body  and  Soul  of  the  Second  Man,  morally  inspired 
and  wholly  controlled  by  the  Conscience  of  the 
Living  Christ. 

If  the  Eucharist  is  a  human  institution,  it  bears 
with  it  no  substantial  charge.  If  it  be  a  divine 
institution,  this  means  that  it  is  a  substantial  change  ; 


150    CHRIST,  THE  MYSTICAL  SELF  OF  MAN 


because  divine  means  substantial ;  and  what  is 
substantial  is  exclusively  divine ;  and  what  is  not 
substantial  change  is  in  no  case  divine  change. 

Granted  these  obvious  facts,  then  the  meaning  of 
the  Holy  Eucharist  is  made  clear  through  every 
word  within  the  Old  Testament,  and  through  every 
word  within  the  New  Testament. 

The  Holy  Eucharist  is  the  beginning  of  the  con- 
summation of  the  Old  and  New  Covenant  between 
deathless  God  and  deathful  Man,  in  which  the  Body 
and  Blood  and  Conscience  of  the  New  Creation  of 
Humanity  are  substantially  interchanged  with  the 
Body  and  Blood  and  Conscience  of  the  old  and 
former  things. 

The  physical  realism  of  Bread  and  Wine  is  simply 
the  touching  medium  through  which  we,  with  the 
Apostles  as  at  the  Last  Supper,  touch,  receive,  and 
take,  the  Living  Christ,  who  was  present  with  the 
Apostles,  and  through  which,  in  no  conceivable 
manner,  He  is  less  really  present  to  us  than  He  was 
to  His  Apostles. 

The  Holy  Eucharist  does  not  mean  that  by 
receiving  it,  grace  is  stored  up  for  us  in  heaven,  while 
we  remain  unchanged  on  earth.  It  means,  when  we 
first  have  grace  to  see,  that  thereby  the  Conscience 
of  Humanity  is  made  nigh  unto  that  Conscience  of 
God  which  once  judged  the  World  in  Christ.  It 
means  that,  during  the  change,  the  Passing  Over  of 
Immortal  Life  happens,  whose  consummation  is  the 
Coming  of  the  Son  of  Man  again  to  judge  the  World. 

It  is  true  that  mankind  may  yet  take  centuries 
before  this  total  Biblical  reality  of  the  Holy  Eucharist 
is  understood. 


THE  NEW  CREATION  151 

The  New  Creation  in  the  New  Covenant  is  that 
joint-creation  in  which  man,  being  free,  must  freely 
concur  with  the  Creating  God.  The  history  of  the 
Holy  Eucharist  in  the  Church  of  Christ  is  the 
history  of  the  free  concurrence  of  humanity  with 
the  covenanted  gift  of  God.  Although  the  entire 
Scriptures  mean  nothing  else  but  the  Coming  of  the 
Son  of  man  to  change  the  heart  and  soul  and  body 
of  man  into  His  likeness  who  was  the  Second  Man ; 
yet,  so  great  is  the  significance  of  this  the  Covenant 
of  the  Word  of  God,  that  man  delays  in  understanding 
and  accepting;  and  God  delays  His  New  Creation, 
pending  on  the  choice  and  free  concurrence  of  the 
mind  and  heart  of  man. 

But  when  the  Prevailing  Word  of  God  shall  have 
won  mankind  to  understand  the  one  meaning  of 
its  Promise,  then  the  Angel  of  the  Covenant  shall 
quickly  come  to  His  Temple  in  the  Holy  Eucharist ; 
and  to  the  very  letter  of  this  Promise,  given  to  all 
mankind  in  every  word  of  the  Old  and  New  Testa- 
ments, He  shall  search  consciences  and  give  us  a  New 
Earth  and  a  New  Heaven. 


PART    VI 

TEN  INSTRUCTIONS  ON  TITLES 
OF  CHRIST 


TEN   INSTRUCTIONS  ON  TITLES 
OF  CHRIST 

I. 

Dayspring. 

Science,  Literature,  Research,  Culture,  and  Human 
Nature  advance  towards  new  outposts  every  year 
and  every  day.  Life  moves  not  towards  darkness, 
but  towards  the  sunrise. 

This  is  because  all  human  knowledge  is  knowledge 
of  the  humanity  of  Christ. 

To  know  all  is  not  to  gain  all ;  to  see  is  not  to 
have,  nor  is  it  to  become.  But  Christ  alone  is 
being  as  well  as  seeing^  possession  as  well  as  longing ; 
and  through  Him  alone  thought  becomes  life. 

If  thought  had  no  goal  of  thought  which  is  beyond 
thought,  then  thought  would  be  all  in  vain,  for  it 
would  not  end  in  creation,  which  is  life.  But  Christ 
has  made  all  human  thinking  to  be  Prophecy,  because 
He  is  the  Goal  of  the  Thought  of  the  World,  and  He 
will  quicken  our  thought  into  His  New  Creation,  the 
incarnate  Word  of  our  sight  and  of  our  desire.  Our 
thoughts  define  our  wants,  not  our  holdings.  But 
thoughts  shall  all  become  true  things,  because  Christ 
is  our  Word  ;  that  is,  all  that  we  can  think  or  read 

155 


166  TEN  INSTRUCTIONS 

of;  He  is  Thought  descending  out  of  Thought's 
realm  into  Life's  realm,  and  becoming  incarnate  in  the 
Flesh. 

If  there  were  no  Christ,  the  world  would  be  con- 
stantly arising  towards  new  vistas  of  life,  but  new 
realities  of  nothing  else  but  new  pain,  because  its 
action  could  never  reach  its  sight. 

Christ  is  Man's  Sight  become  Creation.  The  sight 
of  all  yesterdays  becomes  the  creation  of  all  to-days, 
the  sight  of  all  to-days  becoming  the  creation  of  all 
to-morrov/s. 

He  alone  is  Dayspring  ;  because  no  one  else  who 
ever  lived  changed  want  into  achievement,  sight  into 
creation,  thoughts  into  lives,  dreams  into  events. 

At  the  term  of  the  night  of  every  want  of  every 
man,  Christ  is  the  sunrise  :  out  of  the  depth  of  every 
People's  night  He  is  the  Dawn  of  Day.  At  the  goal 
of  the  world's  painful  thinking  and  uncertainties, 
Christ  is  the  final  Sun  which  is,  in  hidden  ways, 
coming  round  the  dark  world  until  it  rise  and  renew 
the  glory  of  the  earth. 


II. 

Made  of  a  Woman, 

Would  that  every  woman  to-day  aspired,  as  every 
Jewish  woman  did  in  the  past,  to  become  mother  of 
the  world's  Anointed  King. 

In  the  Days  of  Promise  which  are  before  us,  that 
which  was  once  true  for  the  world  as  one,  will  then 
be  true  for  each  individual  person  within  the  world. 

Woman  is  fitted,  by  the  birthright  of  endowments 


MADE  OF  A  WOMAN  157 

which  God  has  given  her,  to  be  the  mother  of,  and 
the  trainer  of,  the  World's  Desire.  The  Virgin  of 
Nazareth  was  fitted  for  her  calling,  not  otherwise, 
than  because  she  responded  to  the  native  grace  of 
womanhood  more  than  any  other  woman. 

All  women  equally  with  her,  though  each  in  her 
peculiar  way,  are  born  to  be  mothers  of  the  King. 
The  Virgin  of  Nazareth  was  not  the  least  natural, 
the  least  womanly,  of  all  woman  ;  she  was  rather  the 
most  natural,  the  most  womanly,  of  all  women ; 
therefore  she  was  blessed  among  women  more  than 
all  the  rest. 

Women  worship  their  Lord  who  gave  them  their 
endowments  and  their  native  grace,  if  they  are  loyal 
to  their  womanly  birthright  of  caring  for  the  advent 
of  the  King  ;  aspiring  in  a  spiritual,  but  real  manner, 
so  to  bring  Him  forth  from  imprisonment  by  unfaith 
in  those  whom  He  would  so  fashion  in  His  own 
image  and  likeness  that  they  would  be  His  brothers 
in  all  human  ways. 

Unlike  Jewish  Mothers,  among  whom  only  one  was 
blessed  with  perfect  divine  fruitfulness,  to-day,  on 
account  of  the  One  whom  one  brought  forth,  every 
woman  may  so  let  Christ's  Redemption  through  faith 
grow  into  effect,  that  every  child  may  become  a  Son 
of  God. 

The  mother  who,  by  faith,  can  see  a  Christ-man  in 
her  own  son,  will  treat  her  son  with  the  reverence 
with  which  Mary  treated  her  own  Son,  Christ.  Then 
indeed  Christ's  Redemption  of  His  image  in  each  of 
us  would  come  forth  within  each  child,  and  Christ 
would  so  live  in  him,  that  he  would  be  a  messenger 
of  the  Messiah  in  the  World. 


158  TEN  INSTRUCTIONS 

We  need  Christ-men  not  less  to-day  than  formerly, 
but  more  so,  many  times  over,  and  more  so  in  mani- 
fold ways.  We  need  a  thousand  anointed  kings  of 
His  Servant  Kingship  ;  in  a  thousand  states  of  life, 
in  all  trades  and  occupations,  in  the  hearts  of  cities 
also,  and  on  the  expanse  of  every  plain. 

Motherhood  shall  learn  its  divine  functions,  and  its 
faith-evoking  power ;  and  then  the  new  generations 
of  Christians  shall  grow  up  first  with  the  life-inspiring 
thought  that  they  are  messengers  of  Christ's  Messiah- 
ship. 

In  that  day  every  Christian  will  be  clothed  with  the 
Royal  Priesthood,  to  show  the  praise  of  Christ,  and 
zealous  to  bring  to  pass  among  all  sorts  and  conditions 
of  Men  the  Reign  of  the  Holy  Ghost. 


III. 

Great  Prophet. 

All  the  prophets  of  the  past  foretold  Him ;  but  so 
great  a  prophet  is  He  that  He  must  needs  have  all 
flesh  to  declare  in  how  great  a  manner  and  in  how 
many  thousand  living  individuals  His  Prophecy  is 
true. 

It  is  for  the  annunciation  of  the  manifoldness,  and 
the  great  comprehension  of  His  Prophecy,  in  the 
latter  days,  that  the  Spirit  of  the  Lord  shall  be 
poured  out  upon  all  flesh.  Unless  the  sons  and 
daughters  of  all  whom  we  know,  and  who  are  around 
us,  prophecy,  and  unless  our  old  men  dream  dreams 
and  our  young  men  see  visions,  no  power  can  testify 


GREAT  PROPHET  159 

to  the  abounding  manner  in  which  Christ  is  the  life's 
prophet  of  every  individual  man. 

The  sons  ol^  man  are  thus  the  Sons  of  God,  and 
Christian  communions  are  all  part  of  the  radiance  of 
His  Church ;  they  may  have  erred,  but  now  He  has 
made  them  His  because  He  needs  them  to  take  to 
themselves  of  the  abundance  of  His  manifold  out- 
pouring. 

In  every  sense,  the  testimony  of  Jesus  is  the  spirit 
of  prophecy.  If  we  speak  of  Him  we  needs  must 
foretell  what  is  to  be,  because  truth  about  Jesus 
Christ  is  truth  about  that  which  is  to  happen  to  all 
the  world.  Through  Him,  every  moment  of  the 
world's  spiritual  history  has  an  individual  meaning  to 
each  of  us.  Because  each  of  us  bears  Him  within  us, 
therefore  is  each  of  us  the  centre  of  the  world  and 
king.  Because  He  is  in  each  one  of  us,  and  as  He  is 
all  to  all  men  in  one,  therefore  all  that  has  happened 
in  the  world  relates  to  us.  Because  He  is  within  us 
all,  this  world  is  beloved  by  Him  and  we  shall  reign 
with  Him. 

Each  of  us  must  therefore  prophesy,  because  His 
Prophecy  has  shown  us  all  destinies  from  the  separate 
point  of  view  of  our  own  individual  life.  If  we  have 
yielded  our  life  receptive  to  His  workmanship,  He 
has  made  it  resplendent  with  new  tidings  of  separate 
joy  from  His  place  within  us,  to  all  the  world  without 
us. 


160  TEN  INSTRUCTIONS 

IV. 

Prince  of  Peace. 

There  are  wars  and  rumours  of  wars  throughout 
the  land,  which  are  the  conflicts  from  the  clashings  of 
interests,  the  rivalries  and  recriminations  of  parties, 
the  mutual  excommunications  of  Churches,  the  cleav- 
ages of  society,  the  struggles  of  men  with  their 
environment.  The  Prince  of  Peace  is  nevertheless 
within  all  strivings,  and  is  yet  beyond  them.  The 
strategy  of  other  princes  leads  to  further  wars.  His 
strategy  alone  has  comprehended  all  wars  and 
reaches  to  beyond  the  name  of  War. 

If  Humanity  did  not  sound  greater  depths  than 
ever  we  knew  or  suspected,  then  all  wars,  through 
their  superficiality,  would  have  ended  before  now. 
But  our  vital  interests  touch  the  sun  and  moon,  and  the 
stars  of  heaven  are  our  souls'  environment,  and  part 
of  our  consciences  touch  the  very  confines  of  hell. 

We  fight  againt  one  another  because  we  do  not 
know  the  depths  of  one  another  ;  nor  can  we  ever 
even  disentangle  ourselves.  The  Prince  of  Peace 
pardons  all  sides  because  He  alone  comprehends  all 
sides,  and  loves  men  in  their  eternal  reconciliation. 

If  we  love  the  Prince  of  Peace,  we  in  principle  love 
our  enemy  too,  and  are  at  peace  with  him  ;  for  the 
Prince  knows  the  enemy's  point  of  view  and  agrees 
with  it,  and  pardons  him ;  and  we,  knowing  not  the 
enemy's  point  of  view,  can  neither  agree  with  it  nor 
seemingly  pardon  him. 

Nevertheless,  knowing  the  Prince  of  Peace,  and 


PRINCE  OF  PEACE  161 

daily  learning  of  His  inclusiveness  and  His  com- 
passionateness,  we  may  expect  quickly  that  the 
enemy,  in  Him,  may  be  revealed  as  friend ;  and  after 
war  there  will  be  peace  into  the  depths  such  as  could 
never  have  been  without  the  war. 

The  wars  of  the  world,  and  the  conflicts  of  religion, 
are  as  the  strategy  through  which  the  Prince  of  Peace 
directs  the  world  towards  His  Jerusalem. 

In  His  present  Heart  exists  already  the  future  goal 
of  the  world.  If  we  draw  near  to  Him  in  the  midst 
of  the  world,  we  see  the  strategy  of  Kings,  and  the 
peace  beyond  the  present  conflicts  unveiled  within 
His  Heart. 

Because  He  understands  the  secrets  of  hearts,  He 
sees  when  and  how  other  men  shall  also  see  and 
pardon  one  another.  Because  He  foresees  this  Pardon 
and  Himself  has  travelled  thither,  He  returns  to  us 
from  the  Goal  of  the  World  and  tells  our  hearts  to  be 
at  rest.  For  by  the  Spirit  of  God  He  has  brought  back 
our  future  Destiny  to  us  from  the  End  of  the  World, 
and  shows  us,  here  and  now,  that  out  of  wars  and 
conflicts  He  has  comprehended  peace. 

Why  should  we  kick  against  the  pricks?  There 
cannot  be  any  total  breaking  away  among  men.  He 
has  ensnared  all  enemies  to  work  unwittingly  for  one 
another.  Why,  then,  should  we  not  at  once  proclaim 
His  forgiveness,  and  suffer  that  His  peace  ensue  ? 

V. 

Star  of  Jacob, 

Our  star  is  our  bright  assurance  in  Heaven  of  our 
Destiny    here    upon   earth.     Through   one    Israelite, 

X 


162  TEN  INSTRUCTIONS 

our  Lord,  we  are  given  Jacob's  inheritance  as  though 
we  also  were  Israelites,  and  the  Star  of  Jacob  is 
thereby  the  Star  of  Destiny  to  each  of  us. 

If  one  man  in  the  world  were  born  with  a  horoscope 
of  Life  and  all  the  rest  with  horoscopes  of  Death,  it 
would  be  well  for  these  others  if  their  lives  were  so 
interchanged  with  the  life  of  the  Lord  of  Fortune 
that  all  might  equally  claim  His  horoscope  of  Life 
for  each  of  themselves. 

Christ  is  the  gift  of  Destiny  to  the  world  and  to  each 
individual  man.  As  every  great  conqueror  trusts  in 
his  star,  so  may  we  trust  our  star,  and  with  more 
assurance  than  they. 

With  so  great  a  task,  a  life-mission,  a  destiny,  hath 
the  Star  of  Jacob  gifted  us,  that  each  man  may 
become  a  great  conqueror  in  His  name.  Without 
Christ,  there  would  be  but  one  world  common  to  all ; 
but  as  a  crystal  may  be  surprisingly  bisected  into  an 
almost  infinite  number  of  crystals  of  the  same  shape, 
so  Christ,  coming  to  each  man,  has  divided  the  world 
into  millions  of  worlds,  that  in  Him  each  man  may 
own  a  world. 

If  we  fight  ourselves,  and  make  our  lives  thereby 
receptive  to  His  skill  and  workmanship,  whose  instru- 
ment is  the  dictates  of  our  own  humanity,  then  God 
the  Creator  has  added  a  new  element  of  life  and 
beauty  to  His  Creation,  and  secretly  yet  effectively 
His  likeness  in  us  through  our  prayer  and  the  beauty 
of  living  impresses  itself  upon  all  the  world. 

Every  child  of  God  fills  the  earth  with  new 
treasures,  which  are  brought  into  effect  by  faith 
through  his  child-like  conformity  to  God. 

In  order  that  we  may  live  for  ever,  we  must  first 


ROOT  OF  JESSE  163 

live  for  all,  and  become  compassionate  of  all.  Being 
won  over  by  all,  we  thus  shall  win  all ;  and  when  we 
may  have  seemed  to  have  passed  away,  our  star  will 
have  arisen,  and  it  will  conquer  the  world  and  leave 
an  abiding-place  for  us. 

Our  Heaven  is  with  our  Master,  and  He  and 
consequently  Heaven,  abide  within  the  heart  of  men. 
There  is  no  place  for  anyone  there  unless  they  also 
have  learned  to  love  and  serve  men. 

When  we  have  made  ourselves  not  to  need,  but, 
through  our  helpfulness,  to  be  needed  by  all,  then  is 
our  star  arisen  ;  and  we  shall  pass  spiritually  into  all, 
and  in  the  regions  of  eternity  administer  for  ever  to 
human  life. 

VI. 

Root  of  Jesse. 

Each  of  us  is  of  the  human  lineage  of  the  King 
who  is  to  be.  He  came  once  in  the  line  of  descent 
from  Jesse.  But  to-day  each  of  us  is  of  the  human 
lineage  from  which  He  shall  descend  into  His 
Second  Coming  forth  into  the  world.  Every  time 
we  yield  our  lives  in  perfect  submission  to  His  Will, 
He  is  born  of  us.  If  anyone  had  yielded  himself  in 
absolute  obedience  to  His  Fiat,  He  would  have 
before  now  come  again  to  judge  the  world. 

For  before  we  saw  Him  He  saw  us  ;  but  before  we 
saw  Him  we  made  no  response  to  Him.  To  see 
Him  is  to  suffer  His  response  in  us  to  arise,  and 
sway  us  into  that  which  He  would  see.  In  the  like- 
ness of  what  He  wills  to  see  in  us,  He  makes  us : 
though  we  ourselves  see  and   cannot   make.     When 


164  TEN  INSTRUCTIONS 

He  sees  us  in  the  sight  of  His  kingly  eyes,  we  are 
chosen  from  our  lowly  estate,  and  made  His  com- 
panions and  His  friends,  and  then  His  resting-places. 

We  are  peers  and  kings  with  Him.  In  appearance, 
it  is  we  who  still  shall  walk  about  the  world  :  but  in 
truth  it  will  be  He  who  walks  instead  of  us,  and  we 
shall  have  been  assumed  into  His  earthly  paradise, 
which  is  reunion  with  Him  here  below. 

The  final  catastrophe  foretold  in  prophecy  is  to  take 
place,  not  within  the  skies,  but  within  the  body  of 
Man,  whose  elements  have  been  drawn  from  the 
stars. 

We  shall  all  pass  away  and  He  shall  take  our  place. 
Of  the  substance  of  our  being,  He  will  be  born  again  as 
Man,  only  because  our  wills  shall  have  so  yielded  to 
His  forming  Spirit  that  He  shall  fashion  us  into  the 
likeness  of  Himself. 

Sacrifice  your  life  and  heart  to  Him  to-day  with  a 
wholly  instructed  yielding  of  your  will  in  His  enlight- 
ment,  and  to-day  will  happen  the  Advent  of  the 
Judge.  Let,  therefore,  your  interest  in  Him  be  instant, 
for  each  of  you  may  wholly  bring  about  His  reign. 

But  in  truth,  no  one  perchance  may  be  found  with 
faith,  and  the  spirit  of  sacrifice,  and  vision  enough, 
to  suffer  Christ  to  come  in  place  of  himself  and 
reign. 

Before  the  Last  Day,  let  each  life,  however,  rehearse 
His  Second  Coming  here  and  now.  Eat,  drink, 
breathe,  think,  talk,  walk,  work,  love,  and  go  to  rest 
in  Christ.  If  you  retain  aught  of  yourself  in  doing 
so,  then  He  has  not  altogether  returned  into  the  world. 

But  the  great  illumination  which  shall  be  with  you, 
and  through  you  to  all  humanity,  if  you  suffer  the 


THE  SECOND  DAVID  165 

divine  Son  to  live,  and  love,  and  walk,  and  labour,  as 
though  in  place  of  you,  will  be  a  true  rehearsal  of 
the  Judgment  Day,  and  a  faint  reflection  to  you  and 
to  all  men  of  the  awful  meaning  of  the  Final  and 
Whole  Event. 

VII. 

The  Second  David. 

The  Second  David  of  Prophecy  was  incarnate 
Loyalty  to  men ;  the  Restorer  of  a  Capital  City 
to  Humanity,  and  the  Reconciler  of  Humanity  with 
itself 

Therefore  all  human  friendliness,  all  social  service, 
all  organised  charity,  all  federations  of  Churches  and 
States  all  unions  of  Labour,  all  Brotherhoods,  all 
Leagues  and  Associations  of  friendliness,  will  ter- 
minate in  a  David's  Realm,  in  which  all  Humanity 
will  be  united  in  one  human  Covenant,  ruled  and 
shepherded  by  David  their  King. 

There  is  that  in  each  of  us  which  one  day  will 
all  come  together,  and  out  of  which  David  will  appear. 
David  sprung  up  from  the  midst  of  the  people ; 
he  was  not  forced  upon  them  from  above. 

David  is  growing  up,  therefore,  out  of  all  the 
organisations  of  Brotherhood  existing  in  the  world. 
He  is  not  the  Rule,  accepted  by  some  and  enforced 
on  the  unwilling  rest.  He  is  all  that  we  now  are, 
but  much  more  so  than  now.  That  which  is  least 
among  associations  is  the  least  to  be  despised. 
A  great  and  world-wide  Church  must  not  con- 
demn a  free  and  local  Church ;  nor  must  the 
least   of  congregations   despise   the    membership  of 


166  TEN  INSTRUCTIONS 

the  great  Ecclesia.  Wherever  two  or  three  men 
agree  together,  from  the  midst  of  them  the  ruler 
of  the  thousands  of  Israel  is  going  forth. 

The  Capital  City  of  the  New  Israel,  unlike  the 
old  city,  is  not  established  in  any  one  single  place. 
The  New  Jerusalem  coming  down  now  on  all  the 
world,  is  all  sealed  and  secured  alliances  between 
men  and  nations,  and  all  organised  brotherhoods, 
which  can  be  brought  about  with  us  across  the 
world.  No  place  on  earth  need  be  beyond  Jerusalem, 
if  only  the  sealed  Alliance  of  ourselves,  the  Spiritual 
Tribes  of  Israel,  is  carried  thither. 

Let  all  of  us,  then,  dispose  of  our  lives  as  individual 
stones  for  the  building-up  of  the  walls  of  David, 
and  of  repairing  the  rents  thereof.  No  new  tribes 
are  to  take  the  place  of  the  old.  But  all  existing 
tribes,  bodies,  communities,  and  churches  must  be 
imbued  with  the  spirit  of  proportion  and  of  reason- 
ableness, and  see  what  is  their  own  separate  position 
within  the  walls  of  the  New  City.  For  immediately 
humianity  has  learned  that  its  strength  and  spirit 
may  be  incarnate  in  the  order  and  rule  of  a  single 
city,  the  New  David  whose  Kingdom  is  within  us 
will  proceed  to  give  His  people  a  New  Jerusalem 
fresh  from  the  Hand  of  God. 


VIII. 

Servant} 

Everyone  of  us  should  perchance  go  into  service 
to  a  master,  in  order  to  understand  how  our  Master 
went  into  service  for  Man. 

^  See  also  under  the  title,  The  Empire  of  the  Servant^  p  196. 


SERVANT  167 

The  secret  that  Christ  revealed  was  this  : — Within 
every  human  heart  burns  a  hope  and  a  desire ; 
within  every  mind  there  shines  a  vision  of  its  fulfil- 
ment; within  every  will  waxes  strong  a  command- 
ment that  what  the  heart  desires  and  decrees  should 
be  fulfilled. 

Servants  are  scientific  obeyers  of  commandments 
given,  and  rules  of  work  decreed.  If  we,  through 
actual  service,  learn  how  to  read  the  highest  mind 
of  humanity,  and  to  obey  and  practise  its  best 
will,  we  are  fit  to  be  neophytes  or  apprentices  of 
Christ 

Christ  is  a  great  apprehension  of  the  desires, 
the  needs,  the  hopes  of  man.  He  sweetly  listened 
to  the  commandment  of  every  heart.  When  His 
hearing  had  been  perfected,  He  said  :  Behold  I  come  ! 
He  strictly  obeyed  the  higher  will  of  men,  and 
fulfilled  the  decrees  of  every  human  heart ;  He 
laboured  and  toiled  day  after  day,  obedient  to  the 
call  of  all  men. 

Such  is  the  new  Kingship,  foretold  indeed  in 
prophecy,  but  never  hitherto  seen  in  life.  It  is  at 
once  the  most  divine,  yet  most  human  function  of 
the  Lord's  ways.  It  required  a  God  to  conceive  of 
the  plan  of,  and  execution  of,  so  simple,  so  practical, 
so  sacrificial  a  conception  of  ruling  the  earth.  Every 
Christian  having  seen  the  Master  can  imitate  His 
Master's  Servantship  to  men. 

We  must  methodically,  advisedly,  systematically 
listen  to,  and  learn  by  heart,  what  all  the  world  is 
praying  inwardly  that  some  one  would  do.  That 
would  be  the  Science  of  Christ,  as  of  one  listening 
to  the  commandment  of  every  heart. 


168  TEN  INSTRUCTIONS 

We  must  put  ourselves  under  the  conditions  of 
service,  accepting  and  executing  orders  as  every 
servant  or  employee  in  the  world  does  to  obey  this 
commandment.     That  would  be  the  Art  of  Christ. 

Then  we  must  set  forth  and  obey  the  world, 
setting  before  our  lives  the  decrees  of  the  lowest 
of  men,  ordering  them  by  system,  investigating  and 
checking  all  that  we  learn,  so  that  we  may  know 
for  certain  that  the  orders  we  believe  ourselves  to 
have  received  are  correctly  given  us.  Then  we  must 
obey  morning,  noon,  and  night,  in  thinking,  in 
acting,  every  day,  and  all  our  lives.  We  must  be 
the  veritable  servants  of  the  world,  in  regard  to 
the  inmost  hopes  and  desires  of  the  world. 

It  is  a  mere  incident ;  though  this  should  not 
concern  us,  that  perfect  service  means  perfect 
empire  over  the*  world ;  for  so  it  was  foretold  by 
the  Prophet,  who  said  that  the  Servant  should  rule 
the  peoples  in  the  Master's  sight. 


IX. 

/  Messenger  of  the  Covenant. 

As  is  the  Minister  of  the  Altar  to  those  who  have 
been  waiting  to  be  joined  in  Holy  Wedlock,  so  is 
Christ  in  regard  to  ourselves  and  the  object  of  our 
desire. 

Without  Him  man  is  more  hopeless  than  were  the 
Israelites  under  Pharoah,  or  in  the  Desert  without 
the  Angel  who  ministered  to  them  God's  Covenant 
of  Redemption. 


MESSENGER  OF  THE  COVENANT       169 

Life  is  beset  with  checks  and  tragedies,  lost  hopes 
and  dashed  expectations.  Success  to  the  heart's 
desire,  achievement,  attainment  of  bliss  and  happi- 
ness, are  as  an  eternally  fleeting  bride  whom  men 
have  wooed  in  vain  to  win. 

Christ  is  the  Messenger  who  brings  to  pass  the 
Covenant  for  ever  between  ourselves  and  our  heavenly 
bride. 

Through  Him,  and  no  other,  we  find  our  best 
selves — our  lost  selves — which  for  ever  had  eluded 
us. 

Visions  of  greatness,  of  nobility,  of  character,  of 
inward  kingship,  of  a  life  worth  living,  of  a  power 
to  reach  the  goal,  have  flitted  before  us  since  our 
childhood.  They  were  an  unending  mirage,  until 
He  brought  our  souls  to  us  through  His  new  and 
eternal  Covenant  in  which  He  wedlocked  us  with 
them. 

The  Covenant  does  not  exist  in  sealed  and  inacces- 
sible archives ;  it  is  written  and  sealed  and  made 
effective  only  in  our  inward,  feeling  selves. 

Our  individual  life  is  the  experience  of,  the  descrip- 
tion of,  the  definition  of,  the  delineation  of,  the  vision 
of,  the  achievement  of,  the  Covenant  between  God 
and  Man.  His  covenant  is  concluded  within  the 
living  body  and  within  the  living  soul  of  man  :  Life, 
breath,  thought,  heart,  purpose,  soul,  love,  consum- 
mation, are  covenanted  to  us  for  all  eternity  by  His 
Redemption,  wrought  thus  within  the  midst  of  our 
lives. 

If  His  Redemption  has  not  yet  altered  the  world 
and  changed  the  hearts  of  all  men,  it  is  simply 
because   our   sensitive    souls   have   not   suffered  the 

Y 


170  TEN  INSTRUCTIONS 

thought  of  Him  to  become  individually  incarnate 
within  ourselves.  He  is  a  Messenger,  which  word 
also  means  an  *'  Angel,"  in  the  sense  in  which  the 
Thought  of  Him  may  become  an  individually  and 
separately  real  messenger  within  each  of  our  souls. 
Such  a  vision  of  Him  in  us  is  a  pure  "  messenger  "  of 
Him,  an  Angel  of  His  Presence.  But  because  He 
thinks  with  our  thought  of  Himself,  what  He  thinks 
is  not  Idea,  but  Life.  The  Angel  of  the  Presence  is 
within  us,  and  alive.  If  we  have  given  place  to  Him 
by  believing  that  He  is  within  us,  He  will  work 
within  us  the  great  and  terrible  Deed  of  Redemption, 
as  has  been  told  to  us  by  the  prophets  of  old,  and 
He  will  covenant  us  for  eternity  with  our  Heart's 
Desire. 


X. 

Messiah. 

The  Messiah  is  the  living  executant  of  the  prayer 
and  prophecy  of  all  the  people  of  the  world.  Nothing 
else  than  that  is  the  World's  Messiah.  Whoever  is 
not  the  people's  Goal  of  prayer  will  not  be  the 
people's  anointed  King. 

Shakespeare  created  a  character  and  thoughts 
worthy  of  Julius  Cassar ;  but  no  one  has  ever 
dramatised  the  character  of  the  World's  Messiah. 
We  could  not  have  imagined  His  thoughts,  nor 
pictured  His  life,  except  the  story  of  the  original  had 
been  preserved.  Nor  can  anyone  imagine  a  Second 
Christ,  unless  he  also  has  thought  with  Christ  and 
been  with  Him. 


MESSIAH  171 

So  long  as  there  is  an  unfortunate  life  lived  in  the 
world,  the  Messiah  is  yet  to  come. 

This  being  so,  whoever  says  now  that  the  Messiah 
lias  come,  and  that  therefore  He  will  7iot  come, 
makes  His  coming  worse  than  His  not  having  come. 

Those  Jews  who  look  forward  to  the  coming  of  the 
Messiah  in  the  Future  are  not  in  error,  but  are  in 
truth. 

It  is  less  wrong  to  deny  the  truth  of  an  event  in 
history,  which,  if  true,  can  never  be  undone,  than  it  is 
so  to  harden  ourselves  to  the  Future  that  by  unfaith 
we  postpone  the  coming  of  the  Day  of  the  Lord. 

Since  there  was  but  one  Messiah,  and  one  Atone- 
ment, and  one  sufficing  Sacrifice,  how,  then,  can  the 
perfect  be  perfected  more,  or  the  past  Advent  become 
the  future  Advent  of  the  Lord  ? 

The  Second,  or  rather  the  Spiritual,  Advent  is  less 
His  coming  to  us ;  it  is  rather  our  going  forth  unto 
Him.  All  the  world  to-day  is  going  towards  its 
Messiah ;  students,  prelates,  pastors,  priests,  profes- 
sional men,  mechanics,  labourers,  are  interested  in 
Christ  and  are  going  thither.  If  He  were  only  a  man, 
their  thought  of  Him  would  remain  a  sacred  memory  ; 
but  because  He  is  more  than  man,  our  universal 
thought  of  Him  will  put  on  indestruction,  and 
become  a  living  /act^  and  He  will  walk  about  the 
world.  We  shall  see  Him,  then,  in  the  glory  of  all 
things  that  are  about  us. 

Christ  is  everyone's  thought  of  a  Good  Man  become 
the  living  actuality  of  that  Good  Man  of  which  they 
thought.  He  is  each  one's  particular  thought  of  what 
He  is  and  what  Good  is,  only  He  is  more.  The 
Messiah  stands  at  the  goal  of  the  thought  of  every 


172  TEN  INSTRUCTIONS 

man,  woman,  and  child  in  humanity.  Going  thither 
will  seem  like  Christ  coming  from  heaven  and 
coming  a  Second  Time  now  to  judge  the  world. 
In  reality,  this  Spiritual  Second  Coming  is  but  our 
quickened  knowledge  of  His  First  Coming  to  Redeem 
Mankind. 


PART  VII 

INSTRUCTIONS  ON  SCRIPTURAL 
TOPICS 


INSTRUCTIONS  ON  SCRIPTURAL 
TOPICS 

I. 

Prophecy. 

"  The  lion  hath  roared,  who  will  not  fear  ?  The  Lord  God 
hath  spoken,  who  can  but  prophesy?" — Amos  iii.  8. 

Prophecy  is  no  mere  prediction.  It  is  the  first 
manifestation  of  the  Spirit  of  God  in  the  achievement 
of  the  predetermined  task. 

Its  divine  author  is  the  Creative  Spirit  of  God  ; 
and  the  evidence  of  this  authorship  is  in  the  impossi- 
bihty  of  the  achievement  by  man  of  the  task  set  forth 
in  the  prophecy  and  in  the  humanly  insuperable 
obstacles,  extending  for  centuries,  which  lie  before  its 
accomplishment. 

Its  human  author  is  the  individual  man  with  all 
his  own  personal  characteristics  rather  intensified 
than  diminished. 

Contrast  Amos  with  Rosea  ;  Isaiah  (first  half)  with 
Daniel ;  Isaiah  (second  half)  with  Jeremiah ;  Micah 
with  Ezekiel. 

The  prophet  sees  the  divine  event  beginning 
before  his  eyes.  He  sees  it,  in  the  Spirit,  unfolding 
itself  unto  its  triumph  and  completion. 

176 


176    INSTRUCTIONS  ON  SCRIPTURAL  TOPICS 

Hosea  out  of  his  own  love  and  loyal  affection  for 
his  own  people,  foresaw  the  conquest  of  Death  by- 
Life.  Isaiah,  from  the  momentary  peace  after  the 
Invasion  of  Judea,  foresaw  the  age-long  triumph  of 
the  Prince  of  Peace.  The  Isaiah  of  the  later  Visions 
foresaw  the  Empire  of  the  Servant  conquering  the 
farthest  islands,  out  of  the  minor  incident  of  the 
recall  of  Israel  under  Cyrus. 

The  Prophet  cannot  help  but  prophesy.  Every 
prophet  speaks  in  his  own  tongue ;  and  if  all  the 
prophets  see  the  same  event,  they  all  report  it  truly 
in  a  style  and  in  imagery  which  is  different  and 
characteristic  in  each  instance. 

Prophecies  are  infallibly  true,  because  they  impar- 
tially record  the  creative,  and  hence  triumphant, 
power  exhibited  within  a  certain  event  of  history. 
Every  divine  event  in  history  perpetuates  itself  for 
ever ;  and  its  effects  last  throughout  secular  history, 
and  are  not  undone  in  eternity.  Every  divine  event 
characterises  itself  in  the  beginning,  in  some  greater 
or  less  degree,  with  marks  about  which  will  remain 
with  it  for  ever. 

Redemption  from  Egypt  is  an  eternal  characterisa- 
tion of  all  future  dealings  of  God.  Hence  the  Seer 
of  the  Apocalypse  foresees  the  redeemed,  in  the  future 
ages  of  the  Church,  singing  again  the  Canticle  of 
Moses  composed  on  the  occasion  of  the  first 
Deliverance. 

Prophets  are  therefore  rather  inspired  witnesses  of 
some  historical  manifestation  of  the  eternal  character 
of  God,  than  men  merely  gifted  with  the  faculty  of 
prevision.  They  foresee  the  Future  with  infallible 
precision,  because  God  makes  them  see  the  Present 


SOCIAL  JUSTICE  177 

in  the  eternal  light.  They  foresaw  Christ  in  all ; 
because  Christ  was  hidden  in  all  humanity.  They 
foresaw  nothing  else  but  Christ,  because  all  human 
history  means  Christ ;  and  no  events  of  history  mean 
anything  which  is  not  unfolded,  revealed,  manifested, 
and  completed  in  Christ. 


11. 

Social  Justice. 

"With  righteousness  shall  he  judge  the  poor,  and  reprove 
with  equity  for  the  meek  of  the  earth." — Isaiah  xi.  4. 

In  the  ancient  world  of  tyranny,  oppression,  cruelty, 
injustice,  and  the  enslavement  of  nations,  the  torture 
of  captives,  and  the  affliction  and  plunder  of  the 
poor,  only  the  Creative  Spirit  of  God  could  have 
foreseen  the  conquest  of  the  world  in  the  name  of 
Social  Justice. 

The  Prophecies  and  Psalms  are  filled  with  aspira- 
tion for  Social  Justice  and  equity,  peace,  and  the 
forthcoming  of  prosperity  for  the  poor  and  the 
meek. 

This  aspiration  centred  around  the  thought  that 
the  First  David  had  arisen  from  among  the  people  ; 
and  the  "Goings  forth"  of  the  David,  whose  first 
anticipation  the  Son  of  Jesse  was,  belonged  to  the 
ever-to-be-renewed  divine  Decree  of  the  World's 
Redemption. 

In  the  same  lowly  manner,  from  the  same  lowly 
city,  a  Leader  of  the  Lowly  would  regenerate  human 

Z 


178    INS^rRUCTIONS  ON  SCRIFl^URAL  TOPICS 

society  within  the  rule  of  justice,  mercy,  and  of  whole 
consideration  for  all. 

We  have  to  go  back  to  prophecy  continually  to 
understand  in  what  way  we  are  to  conceive  in  our 
minds  of  Christ.  We  cannot  understand  Him 
unless  we  are  poor  in  spirit  and  love  the  meek- 
hearted,  and  then  love  Him  and  pray  for  Him  as 
a  David  Arising  and  Coming  for  ever  out  of  the 
heart  of  all  the  poor  and  meek  who  are  now  with 
us. 

If  we  desire  Him  with  the  desire  of  all  the  prophets, 
then  the  desire  of  the  prophets  will  be  fulfilled  for  us. 
For  when  we  have  so  understood  Him,  in  a  moment, 
in  the  twinkling  of  an  eye,  He  will  come  to  us  ;  and, 
girded  with  His  strength,  we  ourselves  shall  judge 
the  poor  with  righteousness,  and  reprove  with  equity 
for  all  the  meek  who  are  around  us. 


III. 

The  Royal  Prophet^  and  the  Royal  Church. 

"And  there  shall  come  forth  a  rod  out  of  the  stem  of  Jesse 
and  a  Branch  shall  grow  out  of  his  roots  ;  and  the  Spirit  of 
the  Lord  shall  rest  upon  him." — Isaiah  xi.  i,  2. 

The  Scriptures  glory  in  the  royal  descent  of 
Christ,  and  in  the  royal  glory  of  His  chosen 
Sanctuary.  Isaiah  relates  the  Messiah,  in  nearly 
every  instance,  to  the  House  of  David.  He  also 
sees  the  living  God  in  the  Temple  rather  than  in 
the  Wilderness  (vi.  i).  His  God  dwells  in  Mount 
Sion    (viii.    18),   which    is    also   the   place    of    His 


THE  ROYAL  CHURCH  179 

Name  (xviii.  y).      The  fire  of  God  is  in  Sion,  and 
His  furnace  is  in  Jerusalem  (xxxi.  9). 

Yet  was  Isaiah  the  sternest  champion  of  the 
lowest  classes  and  of  spiritual  religion.  It  was  he 
who  taught  there  would  be  a  new  age  in  the  world, 
in  which  mercy,  truth,  righteousness,  should  be  uni- 
versal ;  and  the  world  be  led  and  ruled  by  the 
spirit  of  tenderness  as  though  by  a  little  child. 
To  him  earthly  continuities  through  human  times 
are  the  Sacrament  of  the  Spiritual  Descent  of  God 
with  Man ;  and  the  one  earthly  Holy  Place  is  the 
Sacrament,  through  which  all  the  world  becomes  a 
holy  place. 

We  learn  from  this  that,  in  God's  decrees,  spiritual 
kingship,  the  power  of  leading  humanity  by  infinite 
gentleness,  and  lovableness  grows  out  of  the  king- 
ship   of    external     authority    and    force ;    and     the 
spiritual  worship  grows  up  out  of  the  centre  of  temple 
worship.     The  visible  authority  of  the  Church  is  the 
perpetual  starting-ground  of  the  spiritual  authority 
of  the    Church.      The    ritual    worship    of    Christian 
temples  is   the  framework  of  their  worship  in  spirit 
and  in  truth.     If  there  were  no   particular  symbols 
of  religion,  and  no  earthly  presence-chamber  of  the 
King  of   Heaven,  there  would  be  no  conception  of, 
or   actuality  of,  the  spiritual  presence   either.      The 
worship   which    is   neither   on    Mount    Gerizim,   nor 
at  Jerusalem,  is  rooted  in  a  worship  which  lasted  a 
thousand  years  in  visible  temples.     And  as  humanity 
is  always  beginning  de  novo,  we  must  all  retain  our 
Sions  and  visible  temples  of  God,  and  see  that  our 
spiritual  worship  grows  out  of  them,  and  not  away 
from  them. 


180    INSTRUCTIONS  ON  SCRIPTURAL  TOPICS 

God  first  of  all  gave  a  temple  on  Mount  Sion  ;  then 
He  removed  His  presence  (Ezek.  x.  i8)  and  the 
temple  was  destroyed.  For  a  brief  while  He  gave 
Ezekiel  a  spiritual  temple  and  deigned  Himself 
to  fill  it  with  His  presence  (xliii.  2-6).  Then  He 
rebuilt  the  temple  under  Zerubbabel.  But  in  the 
New  Testament  He  shows  how  the  true  temple 
is  the  spiritual  body  of  man,  in  which  is  tabernacled 
the  immortalising  Spirit  of  God.  Christ  never 
refused  to  worship  in  the  Temple.  It  is  only  in 
the  New  Jerusalem  that  there  is  no  temple,  because 
the  Body  of  Christ  the  Lamb  of  God  is  the  temple 
therein.  Churches  are  given  to  us  in  order  that  the 
whole  of  our  life  and  being  may  be  formed  by  God  into 
an  ever-living  temple  filled  by  His  presence  for  all 
eternity.  The  heavenly  Jerusalem  is  the  glorified 
counterpart  from  the  Earthly  Jerusalem  of  bodily 
life. 


IV. 

Shepherd  and  Bishop  of  Souls. 

"  For  ye  were  as  sheep  going  astray  ;  but  are  now  returned 
unto  the  Shepherd  and  Bishop  of  your  souls." — i  Peter 
ii.  25. 

Could  we  but  see  the  soul,  we  should  see  it  to  be 
ever  moving  fast  along.  Standing,  or  sitting,  or 
sleeping,  or  working,  we  may  during  half  an  hour 
pass  through  many  moods  or  states  of  mind  and 
temper ;  and  these  changes  are  real  transformations 
and  movings  about  in  the  Invisible  World  ;  or  else 
we  may  travel  in  thought  through  Thought's  Uni- 


SHEPHERD  OF  SOULS  181 

verse.  Some  think  there  is  no  space  or  time  in  the 
soul ;  in  reahty  there  is  a  more  real  space  and  time 
within  the  soul  than  without  the  soul  ;  only  that  this 
great  expanse  of  dreadful  space  is  our  own  and  no  one 
else's ;  and  our  soul's  duration  is  measured  by  its  own 
acts  and  by  its  conscience,  which  is  as  a  spiritual 
film  of  a  camera  registering  in  an  infallible  record 
every  act  we  do. 

If  we  had  no  Shepherd  of  our  souls,  we  should  be 
lost  in  the  dark  universe  of  our  ineffectual  inner  life  ; 
we  should  hunger  in  the  spiritual  desert,  and  thirst  in 
a  parched  interior  world.  Millions  of  souls  are  dying 
in  the  dark,  and  hungering  and  thirsting  for  the  food 
and  drink  of  souls ;  and  they  who  own  the  souls  live 
a  bodily  life  and  intoxicate  themselves  with  worldli- 
ness  to  keep  the  thought  of  their  inner  falsity  and 
ruin  away.  But  for  each  of  us  the  only  true  world  is 
the  world  within  us,  wherein  are  the  gates  of  heaven 
and  hell,  and  which  alone  will  last  for  ever.  That  we 
may  be  inwardly  guided,  fed,  and  given  to  drink,  we 
must  have  a  Pastor,  or  lose  our  way  irrecoverably. 
We  are  led  through  this  dark  world  of  ourselves  by 
Jesus.  There  are  many  places  of  sighs,  of  regrets,  of 
testifying-actions  remaining  in  their  effects,  that  we 
would  fain  be  delivered  from.  Jesus  carries  us  in  His 
arms  from  out  of  the  pit ;  He  leads  us  inwardly  from 
the  brink  of  the  precipice.  He  banishes  from  our 
midst  the  phantoms  of  our  past  sins.  He  knows  that 
we  are  a  dark  night  within  without  Him  ;  but  He  is 
to  us  a  lantern  in  the  way.  He  nourishes  our  souls  ; 
that  is,  He  gives  us  ever  new  vital  thoughts  on  which 
the  life  of  the  soul  subsists.  He  gives  us  the  waters 
of  refreshment,  that  is,  the  emotion  which  quickens 


182    INSTRUCTIONS  ON  SCRIPTURAL  TOPICS 

and  inspires  our  thoughts  with  the  spirit  of  tender- 
ness and  consideration  towards  what  seems  in  the 
eyes  of  the  world  of  no  account,  but  which  is,  in  the 
inward  universe,  of  the  vastest  worth.  We  learn  of 
the  Shepherd  a  new  valuation  of  every  action  ever 
conceived  of  in  the  heart  of  man.  That  which  was 
hard  and  repugnant,  now  we  glory  in ;  that  which 
seemed  soft  and  pleasurable,  now  we  loathe.  The 
former  reputed  path  to  pasture,  now,  we  know,  leads 
to  the  wilderness.  The  former  reputed  path  to  the 
desert,  now,  we  know,  leads  to  refreshment,  light,  and 
peace.  Finally,  every  habit  and  custom  of  our  lives 
is  shapen  by  Him  and  is  His  own,  whereby  we  shall 
live  for  ever;  because  the  habits  and  virtues  of  our 
lives  are  the  habits  and  virtues  of  the  immortal 
Shepherd  Christ.  Because  we  live,  we  know  that  He 
lives ;  and  because  He  lives,  we  know  that  we  shall 
live ;  because  the  meaning  of  His  pastorship  is  that 
He  is  giving  us  life  from  Life. 


Blessed  are  the  Poor  in  Spirit ^  for  theirs  is  the  Kingdom 
of  Heaven. 

The  poor  man  has  few  or  no  earthly  goods;  the 
poor  in  spirit  may  or  may  not  own  riches  ;  only  that 
he  has  given  away  all  that  he  did  possess,  and 
received  back  all  that  he  does  possess,  in  the  trustee- 
ship of  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven. 

Poor  in  spirit  (that  is,  all-bounteous  within  his 
heart),  he  has  given  all  away ;  rich  in  spirit  (that  is. 


BLESSED  ARE  THE  POOR  183 

from  out  of  the  heart  of  others),  he  has  received  all 
that  he  now  owns.  He  gave  all  in  spirit  to  Christ's 
Kingdom,  and  when  he  received  back  of  his  goods 
as  Christ  willed,  he  received  back  with  them  a  share 
in  the  Kingdom,  the  Commonwealth  of  Christ. 

To  make  oneself  poor  in  spirit,  is  not  to  refuse  to 
give  one's  possessions  in  a  literal  way  ;  it  is  a  true 
surrender  of  one's  possessions,  but  in  such  a  manner 
that  they  are  received  again  on  the  perpetual  con- 
dition of  detachment. 

Before  you  give  your  goods,  see  that  your  goods 
are  precious  goods,  and  loved  and  prized  by  you ;  for 
unless  your  gifts  are  of  goods  which  you  value  in 
your  heart,  they  are  not  precious  gifts  to  others,  and 
tokens  to  others  of  your  heart. 

If  you  give  your  possessions  to  another  and  despise 
what  you  give  away,  you  give  him  no  love  betokened 
in  the  gift ;  you  have  given  in  the  letter  only,  and 
have  not  won  the  heart  of  him  to  whom  the  gifts  are 
given. 

A  man  may  enter  a  monastery,  and  bestow  all  his 
goods  to  the  poor,  and  yet  in  spirit  he  may  have 
given  nothing  whatsoever  away ;  nor  yet,  in  truth, 
have  made  himself  poor ;  for  those  things  which  he 
gave  away  were  no  living  tokens  to  others  that  he 
gave  himself  with  them. 

He  alone  is  poor  in  spirit  who  has  given  to  others 
all  which  he  himself  loves  ;  because  one's  love  is  one's 
heart,  one's  spirit,  one's  soul ;  and  if  he  has  given  in  a 
full  heart,  a  ready  spirit,  and  a  whole  soul,  even  should 
he  receive  back  again,  he  is  poor  in  spirit,  in  the 
wisdom  of  the  Kingdom. 

Our  sin  is  not  that  we  value  earthly  goods  too 


184    INSTRUCTIONS  ON  SCRIPTURAL  TOPICS 

much  ;  but  rather  that  we  do  not  value  them  enough, 
and  at  their  high  and  proper  worth.  Earthly  goods 
are  precious  to  us  and  to  God,  when  they  are  made 
the  Sacraments  which  carry  the  Love  of  Christ  to  all 
men  and  from  all  men. 

Give  the  gift  of  all  your  possesssions  in  spirit 
every  day  upon  the  plate  of  offering  to  their  Maker  ; 
and  receive  them  back  as  He  shall  consign  them 
through  you,  in  your  prayer,  either  to  your  fellows  or 
to  yourself. 

If  now  I  love  my  possessions  in  true  detachment, 
and  give  them  as  the  sacrament  of  my  love  to 
others,  I  shall  win  those  unto  whom  I  give,  not  by 
that  which  is  given,  but  by  my  love  betokened 
by  my  gift.  I  have  enriched  the  others  as  well  as 
myself;  because  as  these  others  are  now  my  friends, 
I  share  their  possessions  with  them,  which  they  either 
ascribe  to  me  if  they  should  use  them,  or  consecrate 
for  me  by  accepting  at  least  the  friendship  which  the 
gifts  betoken,  if  they  should  refuse  them. 

To  make  oneself  poor  of  goods  which  one  despises 
and  counts  for  naught,  can  never  in  spirit  join 
together  men  in  one ;  whereas  to  make  oneself  poor 
of  that  which  one  treasures  and  apprises,  cannot  ever 
sever  men,  but  by  its  placing  of  one's  token  of  what 
is  loved  joins  in  one  those  who  once  were  separate. 

To  become  poor  in  spirit  is  not  the  easy  labour  of 
giving  away,  but  the  difficult  art  of  giving  away  one- 
self, even  if  that  which  was  given  away  returns  unto 
him  who  gave. 


BLESSED  ARE  THE  MERCIFUL         185 

VL 

Blessed  are  the  Merciful^  for  tJiey  shall  obtain  Mercy, 

We  must  not  only  practise  mercy,  we  must  become 
His  mercy  unto  all  whom  we  know.  We  must  seek 
for  those  whom  we  know  not,  and  bring  His  mercy 
to  the  islands. 

Fellowship  with  our  Lord  is  fellowship  with  Him 
in  His  mercy  to  all  mankind. 

If  we  say  we  believe  in  Him,  and  do  not  spread 
mercy  in  all  our  footsteps,  we  are  not  of  His  fellow- 
ship and  His  friends.  If  we  are  all  mercy  to  all  man- 
kind, then  are  we  His  disciples,  and  His  friends  in 
the  fellowship  of  setting  forth  His  mercy  and  His 
love. 

Mercy  is  not  a  set  of  outer  actions,  but  an  inner 
spirit  and  a  lively  fire.  Mercy  inflames  thought, 
shines  in  the  eyes  of  Mercy,  inflames  the  head  in  all 
its  thinking ;  dictating  to  the  breast  the  ways  of  life 
in  all  acting. 

He  who  is  merciful  anticipates  forgiveness  by  pre- 
venting injuries ;  because  the  would-be  injurer,  know- 
ing and  seeing  forgiveness  before  the  trespass,  is 
disheartened  from  the  trespass  and  the  sin. 

Mercy  is  not  condescension,  nor  is  it  only  pity  for 
others  who  are  low.  Mercy  divines  good  in  a  heart 
under  all  the  weight  of  all  its  sins ;  and  by  its  straight 
appeal  to  the  good  in  every  being,  so  comforts  men 
in  their  fight  for  goodness,  that  evil  thoughts  and  evil 
desires  are  taken  as  by  a  sword  and  slain. 

Mercy,  in  your  eyesight,  and  in  your  heart,  pierces 
the  integuments  of  evil  like  an  angelic  sharp  spear, 

2  A 


186    INSTRUCTIONS  ON  SCRIPTURAL  TOPICS 

and  delivers  the  goodness,  too  often  imprisoned,  but 
latent  in  every  heart. 

Mercy  makes  men  good  in  spite  of  themselves. 
Many  men  know  not  that  God  has  created  good 
within  them.  They  judge  themselves  far  more 
severely  than  God,  their  Father,  judges  them. 

Mercy  is  the  Champion  of  the  workmanship  of  God, 
who  made  no  heart  of  the  Creation  utterly  corrupt ; 
and  who  does  but  ask  of  His  creature  that  it  should 
see  His  worth  in  itself  and  vindicate  Himself  where 
they  vindicate  themselves.  God  in  His  mercy  has 
delivered  us  ;  and  we  in  our  mercy  have  delivered 
God  in  His  handicraft  in  man.  If  we  have  shown 
mercy  to  God's  humanity,  shall  not  we  obtain  mercy, 
who  have  proved  the  Champions  and  Loyalists  of 
that  which  He  has  made,  and  also  set  His  Heart 
upon  to  see  it  brought  to  Him. 


VII. 

The  Birth  of  Christ. 

Though  we  are  wont  to  call  it  supernatural,  yet 
we  have  an  instinct  within  which  bids  us  see  in  the 
birth  of  the  God-man  as  an  infant,  the  viost  natural 
event  in  human  history.  Its  correspondence  with 
our  native  instincts  is  the  eternal  and  triumphant 
demonstration  of  the  truth  of  the  Incarnation. 

That  we  can  expect  a  Messiah  in  an  infant  indis- 
tinguishable from  other  infants,  also  proves  our 
native  esteem  for  infancy,  and  the  native  nearness 
of  the  child  with  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven. 

Every  infant   is   born  near  paradise,  and  yet  we 


THE  BIRTH  OF  CHRIST  187 

feel  that  no  infant  can  quite  pass  the  thin  partition 
wall  without  aid  of  a  power  more  than  that  of  man. 
The  life  of  everyone  from  infancy  is  a  gradual 
falling  away  from  promise.  Christ  alone  reached 
to  and  fulfilled  the  eternal  promise  of  every  child. 
This  is  the  truth  so  beautifully  celebrated  in  the 
Gospels,  and  so  clearly  seen  by  the  Evangelists. 

Thereby,  thirty  or  more  years  afterwards,  St  Peter 
called  Jesus  the  Messiah,  the  Son  of  God.  If  even 
this  chief  Apostle  did  not  recognise  this  divinity 
before  then,  how  closely  and  perfectly  must  He 
not  in  all  things  have  been  a  true  man. 

With  this  slight  difference,  that,  with  the  falling 
away  of  all  others  from  the  calls  of  true  humanity, 
Christ  persevered  in  faithful  accord  with  all  its 
dictates ;  He  differed  in  nothing  outwardly  from 
anyone  else. 

Yet  that  small  perseverance  in  true  humanity  was 
an  infinite  act,  for  it  was  the  new  creation  of  heaven 
and  of  earth,  and  it  required  as  great  a  divine  power 
as  the  first  creation.  Moment  by  moment  in  that 
sacred  cradle,  humanity  was  being  re-created  within 
the  perfect  likeness  of  God. 

We  likewise  know  that  we  are  the  promise  of 
something  infinitely  better  than  ourselves.  This 
fact  makes  us  intimately  familiar  with  all  the 
prophets  of  Israel  who  foresaw  a  Messiah.  We  are 
each  also  prophecies  of  Him.  The  world  would  not 
be  interested  in  religion  and  religious  history,  unless  all 
religious  history  written  in  the  Bible  were  within 
us.  The  Moralists  gave  morals,  but  they  did  not 
save  the  world.  Salvation  is  more  than  morals,  and 
more   than  the   spiritual   life.     It  is   something   as 


188    INSTRUCTIONS  ON  SCRIPTURAL  TOPICS 

real  as  this  real  Infant,  which  is  certainly  more  than 
moral  actions  and  spiritual  presences.  Our  salvation 
must  embrace  the  flesh,  as,  by  the  birth  of  the  Babe 
of  Bethlehem,  the  sovereign  power  of  God  embraced 
it.  Unless,  besides  being  moral  and  spiritual,  our 
bodily  life  is  reborn  within  the  Kingdom,  our  souls 
and  minds  can  never  remain  therein. 

To-day  is  born  to  us  a  Saviour.  But  instinctively 
we  all  perceive  that  if  He  were  anything  more  than 
our  wholly  effected  selves,  then  this  Child  could  not 
be  Saviour  to  us.  The  great  truth  of  the  Incarnation 
is  this,  our  morality,  our  spirituality,  our  faith,  our 
hope,  our  love,  must  become  flesh  before  they  can  be 
saved,  and  we  ourselves  with  them ;  and  thus,  when 
we  contemplate  its  meaning,  the  life  of  the  God-man 
seems  to  be  nearer  to  us  than  we  ourselves  are  to 
ourselves.  Other  persons  may  allure  us  to  the  With- 
out, but  He  allures  and  saves  us  to  the  Within.  To 
save  us  means  to  make  us  true  to  ourselves.  No  one 
knows  us  better  than  we  ourselves  do,  except  He  who 
made  us  ourselves.  To-day,  the  obstacle  between  what 
we  ourselves  are,  and  what  our  lives  are  ineffectually 
felt  to  be  promises  of,  is  taken  away  for  ever.  This 
world,  for  the  first  time  in  its  history,  becomes  an 
entire  success.  So  great  have  been  our  failures,  and 
those  of  the  whole  of  history,  which  is  one  gigantic 
process  of  failure  too,  that  at  length  we  have  failed 
into  success ;  for  by  weakening  towards  humility,  we 
have  grown  obedient  and  pliable  to  the  Creative 
Hand.  When  wax  is  softened  by  the  heat,  it  will 
take  any  shape  whatever.  Were  there  no  hand  to 
remodel  it,  it  would  forthwith  melt  away.  When  the 
aspirations  of  humanity  were  about  to  melt  away,  a 


THE  SHEPHERDS  189 

Child  was  born  in  whom  they  are  re-shapen  in  accord, 
not  with  anything  foreign,  but  with  themselves.  This 
Babe  is  in  a  sense  the  only  Babe  of  the  world.  He  is 
the  only  true  Babe  of  all  the  mothers  of  the  world, 
and  all  the  others  are  but  changelings  except  in  so 
far  as  they  are  true  to  Him.  But  they  are  all 
true  in  Him.  Whosoever  loves  This,  loves  all,  for  all 
only  are  born  in  His  birth  ;  and  whosoever  loves  any 
babe,  even  if  he  knows  it  not,  loves  this  Babe  of 
babes,  in  whom  lies  all  the  subsistence  of  the  rest.  ^ 


VHI. 

The  Shepherds. 

This  is  a  lesson  to  theologians  and  the  authorities 
of  the  Church.  When  the  things  of  the  Spirit  have 
embraced  the  actualities  of  the  flesh,  then  it  is  as  easy 
to  preach  the  mysteries  of  the  kingdom,  as  to  tell  a 
Shepherd  thelnews  of  a  neighbouring  event.  There  are 
men  who  are  learned  in  argument,  and  who  can  hold 
their  own  in  controversy ;  much  more,  there  are  also 
Disciples  of  the  Master,  whose  life  and  being  diffuse 
the  peace  and  goodwill  of  the  Salvation  of  God. 
The  first  may  hold  their  own  in  debate,  the  second 
alone  are  conquerors  of  other  men. 

In  the  veneration  paid  to  the  child  Jesus  by  the 
Shepherds  there  are  two  triumphs,  and  since  their 
first  beginning  the  like  occasion  has  always,  and  will 
always,  result  in  equal  triumphs.  The  showing  of 
the  Holy  Infant  was  the  triumph  of  the  power  of 
God,   and  the   justification  of  His  ways  with   men. 


190    INSTRUCTIONS  ON  SCRIFPURAL  TOPICS 

The  recognition  by  the  Shepherds  was  the  triumph  of 
the  intuition  of  all  simple-minded  men  who  are,  now 
and  for  ever,  carried  away  by  these  divine  realities 
which  are  set  forth  in  the  sincerity  which  conforms 
every  breath  of  one's  being  to  the  divinity.     Holiness 
is  usually  looked  upon  as  aloofness  and  exaltation. 
But  wherein  was  the  aloofness  of  the  Child  of  all 
the  Holiness  that  ever  was?    For  He  was  set  forth  to 
the  simple  shepherds  in  a  manner  not  in  the  least 
conceivable  degree  different  from  that  in  which  a 
mother,  at  any  time,  shows  her  new-born  child  to 
friendly  well-wishers.     The  aloofness  of  Holiness  is 
evidently  an    imperfection  of   Holiness,  and  not  its 
true  adornment,  for  the    Holy    One  of    Israel   was 
reserved  in  no  aloofness  at  all  from  the  tender  and 
friendly  and  worshipful  gaze  of  the  lowly  shepherds. 
Consider,  O  Christendom,  whether  thou  hast  taken 
to  heart  this  lesson  of  the  divine  way  of  the  setting 
forth  of  God  to  man.     What  of  the  pomp  of  your 
churches,  the  fashionableness  of  your  congregations, 
the  exaltedness  of  your  officials,  the  aloofness  of  your 
enclosed  nuns  and  monks.     By  no  monastic  enclosure 
was  the  Babe  of  Bethlehem  reserved  from  the  gaze 
of  the  people  of  the  hillside;    by  no  convent  grille 
was  the  first  of  holy  virgins  kept  from  holy  equality 
with   all   the   friendly  citizens   around   the   manger. 
Nor  were  the  hearts  of  the  simple  won  by  the  exhibi- 
tion of  mighty  pomp  of  authority  and  power,  but  by 
the  exhibition  of  that  divine  authority  and  power 
which   comes   when   all   these   pomps    are   removed 
away  from  sight.     This  is  no  proud  condemnation  of 
the  authority  which  God  has  set  forth  in  His  Holy 
Church  ;  but  only  an  appeal  to  the  divine  manner  in 


THE  SHEPHERDS  191 

which  the  Son  of  God,  the  Source  of  all  authority, 
has  established  His  authority  for  ever  among  men. 
Let  the  modern  Jerusalem  of  all  priests  and  hier- 
archies be  converted  to  the  divine  ways  of  the  Lord 
its  God,  and  then  the  peoples  will  flock  to  her  from 
afar.  We  should  not  pray  that  those  in  authority 
should  have  less  influence  and  authority  than  they  now 
possess,  we  should  pray  that  these  may  be  immeasur- 
ably increased  in  that  they  take  to  themselves  the 
cloak  of  power  from  Him  in  whose  hands  it  is  all  held 
in  its  primal  source.  If  we  pray  that  the  Spirit  of  the 
Lord  may  come  with  might  upon  the  bishops,  priests, 
and  pastors  of  the  Church  ;  if  we  pray  that  all  teachers 
may  learn  from  the  first  of  Teachers  His  way  of 
teaching  ;  we  are  to  pray  in  union  with  them,  and  are 
not  to  set  up  ourselves  in  schism  and  separation 
against  them.  We  should  conserve  and  amplify  their 
power,  authority,  and  influence  in  the  light  of  the 
way  in  which  the  Holy  Infant  carried  the  conviction 
of  His  might,  and  authority,  and  power  to  save  them, 
into  the  hearts  of  the  Shepherds. 

But,  more  than  in  anything  I  can  say,  is  the  ever- 
fresh  and  ever-appealing  significance  of  the  story  of 
how  God  first  won  hearts  through  His  helplessness 
more  triumphantly  than  ever  in  the  past  He  had  won 
them  by  an  apparent  exhibition  of  His  might.  The 
truth  is,  that  the  force  which  could  rend  the  heavens 
is  only  apparent  power  ;  but  the  force  which  was  in 
the  likeness  of  a  helpless  babe  had  indeed  come  to  its 
true  and  perfect  symbol,  and  began  forthwith  to 
gather  up  human  hearts  and  souls  for  all  eternity. 


192     INSTRUCTIONS  ON  SCRIPTURAL  TOPICS 

IX. 

The  Manifestation  to  the  Wise  Men. 

Christ  said  to  Pilate,  "Thou  sayest  that  I  am 
a  king "  ;  and  here  we  find  wise  Rulers  coming  to 
learn  the  secrets  of  His  Kingship,  and  to  proffer  Him 
their  gifts.  It  is  indifferent  to  us  whether  these 
Magi  came  from  the  East,  the  South,  or  whether 
they  are  to  be  imagined  as  having  come,  as  it  were, 
out  of  a  Dream  of  our  own,  or  of  a  future  day.  They 
stand  for  the  earthly  wisdom  and  power  of  all  ages. 
Just  as  spiritual  salvation  was  first  announced  to 
the  Shepherds,  so  is  temporal  salvation  now  announced 
to  the  Magi. 

We  are  all  learning  to-day  that  if  Christ's  Kingdom 
is  not,  in  its  origin,  of  this  world,  it  is,  none  the  less, 
a  power  in  temporal  affairs  equally  as  it  is  in 
spiritual  gifts.  Our  Christian  Socialism  is  a  scanty 
recognition  of  the  whole  Kingship,  in  which  Christ 
was  King.  I  cannot  altogether  join  with  those 
who  speak  of  the  "  humiliation  "  of  Christ.  Is  it  quite 
sure  that  He  was  ever  humiliated  ?  It  is  quite  true 
that  the  romantic  St  Francis  of  Assisi  saw  in  Christ's 
apparently  lowly  surroundings  a  humiliation  of 
Christ  as  Man,  from  kingship,  to  the  state  of  a 
servitor  ?  To  this  Saint  the  social  lowliness  of  Christ 
was  a  blessed  sequence  to  His  first  descent  from 
heaven  to  earth.  But  in  my  inmost  heart,  I  cannot 
help  feeling  that  both  the  becoming  Flesh,  itself,  and 
the  becoming  Flesh  in  abject  poverty,  were  rather 
glorifications  than  humiliations.     Be  that  as  it  may, 


THE  WISE  MEN  193 

St   John's   Gospel,  in   which  all   Christ's   life   is   set 
forth  as   a  glorification,  allows  us  to  think  in  some 
such   manner.      Before   we   were   wise,   we   used  to 
think  of  kingship  as  power  and    leadership   resting 
upon    the    right   to   constrain,  and   decorated   with 
the   solemn   baubles   of  authority  and  office.     Then 
came  a  time  in  which  Republicans  vaunted  the  power 
of  the  people,  and  asserted  the  same  in  Revolution. 
But  in  so  far  as  they  appealed  to  brute  force,  they 
never  ruled  the  hearts  of  men.     Now,  we  have  grown 
weary  of  crying  down  the  authorities,  and  rulers  and 
kings.     All  that  we  ask  for  is  essential  wisdom  in  their 
leadership  ;  and  all  the  world  will  most  willingly  follow 
in  their  way.     Before  God's  eternal  sight  of  humanity, 
and  in  the  eyes  of  all  who  with  the  Wise  Men  have 
come    to    the  Holy    Infant    for    secular    guidance, 
ostentatious   exaltedness    is   the   real  humiliation  of 
true   humanity ;  and    the  simplicity   without  adorn- 
ment, of  Bethlehem,  is  the  true  state  of  exaltation. 
A  king    by  his    authority  and  force  of  arms  might 
obtain    a    kingdom    or   rule    an   empire.      But  only 
in  absolute  fraternisation  with,  and  joint  leadership 
of,   their    humanity,   can    he   create    for   them   and 
for  himself  a  happy   and   enduring   commonwealth. 
"Sovereignty"    must   be   preserved  intact;    but    no 
sovereignty    can   save    society   unless    it    enters,   in 
intensive   fraternisation,  within   the  sphere  of  every 
man,  woman,   and  child  within  its  realm.      If  they 
knew  this,  then  all  the  leaders  of  Society  would  glory 
in  nothing  else  but  in  the  amount  of  their  ordered 
fraternisation.     They  would  not  bestow  their  goods 
on  the  poor  ;  they  would  simply  delight  in  cultivating 
that  exquisite  flower,   humanity,   in   a   business-like 

2  B 


194    INSTRUCTIONS  ON  SCRIPTURAL  TOPICS 

cultivation  of  industrial  and  agricultural  co-operation, 
through  which  the  various  classes  would  indeed 
stand  together  in  one  fraternal,  and  therefore 
Christian  Commonwealth. 


Carpenter  at  Nazareth. 

The  Gospels  write  mostly  about  three  years  of  the 
life  of  the  incarnate  Reason  of  God. 

The  rest  of  His  words  and  deeds,  are  they  not 
written  in  the  lives  of  every  mechanic  or  artisan, 
and  even  in  the  lives  of  every  man  and  woman 
and  child  who  was  ever  a  wayfarer  in  the  world? 

No  sage  at  Nazareth  ever  suspected  that  the  Son 
of  God  was  their  carpenter  in  executing  orders  to 
repair  their  lintels,  or  saw  their  wooden  shelves,  or 
mend  their  broken  railings. 

If  the  Son  of  God  was  here  indistinguishable  from 
man,  may  not  man  himself  become  indistinguishable 
from  the  Son  of  God.  The  story  of  the  daily  labourer 
is  the  unwritten  Gospel  of  Jesus  Christ;  for  if  we 
know  the  workman's  story,  we  know  the  Gospel 
of  Jesus  Christ  before  He  was  manifested  to  the 
world. 

The  Son  of  God — or  what  is  indistinguishable 
from  Him — is  working  at  the  docks  and  on  the 
railway.  The  Son  is  hauling  wood  ;  driving  carts ; 
stocking  furnaces  ;  building  houses  ;  tending  mills ; 
working  at  looms  ;  mending  roads.  The  Son  of  God — 
or  what  is  indistinguishable  from  Him — is  ploughing 


CARPENTER  AT  NAZARETH     195 

the  fields ;  raising  the  stone ;  cleaving  the  wood. 
The  Son  is  in  the  forest  and  upon  the  plain.  The 
Son  of  God  toils  in  the  vineyards,  and  walks  on 
the  highways  and  byways,  and  enters  every  house 
where  men  are  living. 

For  if  the  Reason  of  God,  who  was  also  Himself 
the  Son  of  God,  toiled  as  an  artisan  without  any 
human  recognition  of  His  Sonship,  must  there 
not  be  something  exceedingly  agreeable  between 
the  Son  and  human  work,  so  as  to  make  it  possible 
for  the  Son  of  God  to  be  indistinguishable  from  a 
workman  ?  And  if  the  workman  is  so  near  the 
heart  of  the  Son,  that  the  Son  could  enter  his  heart, 
unawares  to  the  comrades  of  the  Son  of  God  in 
Nazareth,  are  not  these  comrades  themselves  very 
near  to  a  Son  of  God  who  was  in  fact  indistinguish- 
able Himself  from  them  ?  Is  there  not  a  possible 
"little  more"  within  them  which,  being  passed, would 
make  them  Sons  of  God  too  ? 

The  framework,  the  body,  the  heart  of  humanity, 
are  the  tools  of  God.  If  the  arm  swings  with  the 
purpose  of  God  as  well  as  that  of  the  human  over- 
seer, the  human  arm  is  swinging  for  the  purpose 
of  the  New  Creation. 

Man  is  a  Son  of  God ;  or,  at  least,  I  mean  that 
man  is  with  God  and  of  God.  The  New  Creation 
is  the  old  day's  work  with  the  new  chrism  of  a 
consciousness  of  God.  The  New  Creation  is  with 
the  toil  of  every  labourer,  the  craft  of  every  carpenter, 
the  skill  of  every  manufacturer. 

God  is  not  a  strain  upon  man  ;  a  duty,  power, 
authority,  which  can  be  a  motive  or  cause  for  rest- 
lessness.    God  is  not  a  chain,  or   a  restraint,  or  an 


196    INSTRUCTIONS  ON  SCRIPTURAL  TOPICS 

unnatural  attitude  of  mind,  or  a  supranormal  heart 
in  Man. 

Before  Christ,  God  was  supernatural  to  man.  By 
the  incarnation  He  alone  is  the  natural  thing  to 
man.  Christ  is  your  native  self  He  is  your 
unstrained  being.  He  is  your  inner  privilege  to 
remain  yourself  He  is  your  freedom  from  constraint ; 
your  own  autonomy  or  self-sovereignty.  He  is  your 
unfettered  state  of  mind ;  your  human  against  your 
inhuman  heart. 

If  life  recognises  Life  in  the  world,  then  life  knows 
God  in  the  world.  If  mind  sees  Mind  in  the  world, 
then  mind  sees  God  in  the  world.  If  the  heart  sees 
the  Heart  within  itself,  it  sees  the  Heart  of  God 
within  itself,  and  within  the  Universe  and  beyond 
the  Universe.  The  Son  of  God  and  Man  is  but  the 
sum  of  all  things  in  their  state  of  Rest. 


XI. 

T/ie  Empire  of  the  Servant. 

Nothing  has  so  beautifully  anticipated  our  modern 
practical  thoughts  of  a  religion  embodying  itself 
in  acts  of  social  service  to  men  as  the  prophecies 
of  the  Servant  of  the  Lord,  in  Isaiah  xl.-lxvi.^  Here 
for  the  first  time  in  the  Bible,  Service  of  God  for 
the  World  becomes  the  leading  thought  commended 
to  the  believers  in  the  true  God.     Hitherto  Service 

1  The  author  is  called  the  Second  Isaiah,  or  the  Isaiah  of 
Babylon,  because  these  prophecies  are  set  in  an  historical 
environment  of  a  hundred  and  fifty  years'  later  period  than 
that  in  which  Isaiah  of  Jerusalem  prophesied. 


THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE  SERVANT       197 

of  God  had  consisted  in  worship  of  God,  or 
obedience  of  the  Statutes  and  Commandments  of 
the  Thora;  and  a  servant  of  God  has  been  one 
who  thus  worshipped  and  obeyed  within  the  narrow 
limits  of  Jewish  national  life.  But  in  this  portion 
of  Scripture,  "  Servant  of  God "  means  one  who  is 
serviceable  to  God  in  the  divine  scheme  of  the  social 
regeneration  of  all  nations.  As  a  human  servant 
receives  orders  from  his  master,  and  carries  them 
out  with  obedience  and  fidelity  within  the  extent 
of  the  master's  rule,  so  in  Isaiah's  conception  of 
religion,  the  Servant  of  Jehovah  is  he  who  renders 
Him  service  in  the  world,  His  dominion  ;  he  who 
obeys  His  orders  for  the  furtherance  of  His  beneficent 
rule ;  he  who  identifies  his  will  with  that  of  the 
Divine  Spirit,  in  order  that,  as  a  faithful  servant, 
his  own  work  may  become  equivalent  with  God's,  his 
Master's,  work. 

The  Book  of  Isaiah,  in  contrasting  the  empire 
of  the  Servant  with  that  of  the  empire  of  the  King 
of  Babylon,  reviewed  in  its  earlier  chapters,  calls  to 
mind  Daniel's  great  characterisation  of  the  Kingdom 
of  the  Saints,  contrasted  with  the  kingdoms  which 
ruled  by  brute  force  and  oppression.  The  King 
of  Babylon  is  called  the  "  Oppressor  "  (Isaiah  xiv.  4). 
He  is  the  man  who  caused  the  kingdoms  to  tremble  ; 
who  made  the  world  as  a  wilderness,  and  destroyed 
its  cities  ;  and  who  when  he  had  taken  captives,  would 
not  open  the  house  of  his  prisoners  (Isaiah  xiv.  16,  17). 
It  would  seem  that  the  portrait  of  the  "Servant" 
in  the  later  chapters  of  Isaiah  had  been  sketched  in 
an  intended  contrast  to  that  of  the  King  of  Babylon. 
It   was  the   social    injustice  of  this   tyrannical    rule 


198    INSTRUCTIONS  ON  SCRIPTURAL  TOPICS 

to  all  the  lesser  nations,  not  merely  the  misfortunes 
it  entailed  upon  Israel,  which  fired  the  indignation 
and  wrath    of     Isaiah.       The    spectacle    had    been 
witnessed   to   of  great   armies   proceeding   year   by 
year  from  Babylon,  bent  upon  pillage  and  conquest, 
and   the   reductions   of  all   peoples   to   tribute    and 
slavery.     The  idea  of  an  empire,  a  world  dominion, 
a   lordship   over   other   lands,   so   different    from    a 
mere  local  sovereignty,  had  thus  forcibly  impressed 
itself  upon  the  minds  of  all  who  lived  in  that  era. 
What    Babylon    had  been    in  a  brutish   sense,   the 
Second   Isaiah  conceived    that  Israel  might  become 
in  a  human  sense.     Babylon,  the  tyrant,  had  at  least 
been   the   object-lesson    inspiring  the   concept  of   a 
counterpart  to   Babylon,  an  empire  of  the  Servant : 
an  empire   in  which,  through   the   eminence   of  its 
service  for  God    to  all  nations,  it   should   take  the 
place  over  an  empire  which  inhumanly  and  impiously 
tyrannised  over  them.     As  has  often  since  happened, 
world-transformations   had    opened    up   new   vistas 
of  spiritual  prophetic  vision.    Hence  entered  the  place 
for  an  empire  ruling  in  the  efficacy  of  its   human 
appeal,  the  title  of  whose  rulers  came  to  them  from 
the   spirit    of    the   meekness,    and    gentleness,   and 
docility  through  which  they  showed  their  willingness 
to  serve  the  peoples. 

This  concept  of  a  spiritual  empire  of  service  to 
God  for  the  world  is  the  first  great  prevision  of  a 
beneficent  Christian  Civilisation  embodied  in  a  world- 
federation,  or  in  a  community  of  dominant  Christian 
nations  whose  title  to  sovereignty  over  others  exists 
in  their  readiness  to  establish  justice,  to  spread  light, 
and  to  bring  freedom  to  the  oppressed. 


THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE  SERVANT        199 

The  word  "  Servant,"  used  so  many  times  by 
the  Second  Isaiah,  is  to  be  understood  in  its  context 
in  relation  to  the  theology  of  this  prophet.  This 
theology  includes  the  most  highly  developed  con- 
ceptions of  monotheism  in  the  Old  Testament.  To 
some  other  prophets  of  monotheism  the  Gods  of 
the  Gentiles  may  have  been  taken  as  subordinate 
powers,  or  evil  spirits,  who,  within  certain  limits, 
held  sway  over  the  fortunes  of  nations.  In  this 
portion  of  Isaiah,  nations  are  instruments  of  one 
and  the  same  sovereign  divine  rule.  The  reputed 
gods  of  the  Heathen  are  not  only  not  gods  nor 
demons ;  they  are  "  nothings "  and  "  nothingness." 
Evils  exist  through  men's  declension  from  good. 
In  spite  of  evil,  the  God  of  Israel,  who  is  the  saving 
God  of  all  peoples,  disposes  evil  for  good  purposes. 
God,  as  alone  might  have  been  inferred  from  the 
Book  of  Ezekiel,  does  not  wish  merely  to  assert 
His  sovereignty.  His  *'  Holiness,"  in  other  nations. 
He  wishes  to  save  all  the  world,  to  establish  social 
justice,  to  bring  men  to  the  light,  to  free  the 
oppressed. 

It  is  to  execute  this  beneficent  will  of  tbe  great 
Master  of  the  earth  that  Israel  had  been  predestined 
from  the  beginning  and  called  to  be  the  "  Servant," 
through  whom  the  beneficent  will  of  the  world's 
Master  might  be  in  time  accomplished.  If  the  word 
"  servant "  is  used  in  several  varying  characterisa- 
tions, this  is  to  be  accounted  for  by  the  historical 
fact  that  Israel,  during  history,  had  fulfilled  its  life- 
destiny  in  varying  decrees  of  completeness.  And 
where  in  several  lyrical  poems  of  the  greatest  beauty, 
the  prefigurement  is  made  of  one,  or  of  a  few,  among 


200    INSTRUCTIONS  ON  SCRIPTURAL  TOPICS 

whom  the  Spirit  of  Service  of  God  to  others  had 
become  the  vital  passion  of  their  lives,  the  thought 
of  a  Servant  of  the  Lord  reaches  to  the  climax  of 
its  perfect  ideal  embodiment. 

The  broad  and  restricted  senses  in  which  the 
designation  "  Servant "  is  applied,  now  to  the  whole 
people,  now  to  the  ones  who  are  the  true  embodiment 
of  the  ideal  of  service,  appear  on  reference  to  several 
texts. 

In  chapter  xlvi.  is  a  lyrical  poem,  in  which  Israel 
is  declared  to  have  been  named  the  servant  from 
the  first  moment  of  its  conception  as  a  nation. 

In  chapter  xlL,  verses  8,  9,  it  is  written  that,  in 
spite  of  the  captivity  in  Babylon  and  the  dispersion, 
Israel  has  not  been  cast  away,  but  is  still  the 
"  Servant "  of  God  ;  that  Jacob  is  the  chosen  of  God, 
and  that  the  whole  of  the  seed  of  Abraham  are 
the  friends  of  God;  that  they  will  be  gathered 
together  from  the  ends  of  the  earth  for  the  per- 
formance of  this  service. 

In  chapter  xlii,,  verses  18,  19,  complaint  is  raised 
that  the  nation  is  blind  and  deaf  to  the  great  destiny 
for  which  God  has  prepared  it  as  Servant,  in  the 
world,  to  Him. 

In  chapter  xliii.  it  is  declared  that  the  blind 
who  are  now  made  to  see,  the  deaf  who  are  now 
made  to  hear,  are  to  be  called  as  witnesses  to  the 
unity  and  sovereignty  of  God,  and  as  the  "  Servant " 
by  whose  instrumentality  it  shall  be  known  that 
there  is  no  saviour  to  the  world  but  the  God  of 
Israel. 

In  chapter  xliv.  it  is  declared  that,  to  fulfil 
the  Master's  task,  Israel    shall    even    now    be   freed 


THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE  SERVANT       201 

by  the  "  Shepherd  "  Cyrus,  and  shall  be  restored  to  its 
native  land,  upon  which  Jerusalem  and  the  temple 
shall  be  rebuilt. 

In  chapter  xlix.,  following  upon  the  words  of  the 
lyrical  poem  previously  quoted,  a  distinction  arises 
between  Israel  as  a  whole,  and  the  elect  ones  of 
Israel  over  whom  the  Spirit  of  Service  for  God  to  the 
world  has  first  taken  possession.  These  elect  ones 
are,  in  a  restricted  manner,  the  "  Servant "  to  Israel 
itself ;  and  having  fulfilled  this  service,  they,  and  the 
Nation  with  them,  are  to  become  the  *'  Servant " 
to  the  Gentiles,  through  whom  the  knowledge  and 
salvation  from  God  the  Master  of  all  nations  is  to  be 
made  known  to  the  ends  of  the  earth. 

From  this  restricted  sense  of  the  word  it  is  in- 
telligible in  what  sense  the  Spirit  of  Jehovah, 
embodied  in  one  or  more  elect  servants,  represents 
the  final  triumphant  advance  of  the  Divine  Empire 
of  Service  from  Israel  among  all  the  nations. 

In  chapter  xlii.  is  the  lyric  of  this  transcendent 
mission  of  a  people  of  God,  the  Servant  of  the  true 
God  among  all  the  rest  of  the  peoples,  and  in  every 
age  of  the  World's  history.  It  is  the  "  new  song " 
(verse  lo),  setting  forth  the  divine  justification  of  the 
election  of  Israel  to  pre-eminence,  in  its  call  to  shape 
the  destinies  of  the  history  of  the  world.  It  is 
a  declaration  of  that  in  which  the  people,  or  any 
individual  Israelite  by  implication,  or  any  other 
nation  or  any  individual  of  any  nation,  shall  be  as 
one  of  whom  it  may  be  said  that  God  shall  make  it 
known  that  in  such  a  one  "  His  Soul  delighteth." 
This  prophetic  song  is  therefore  no  less  a  revelation 
of  the  heart  of  the  true  religion  of  all  times,  than  it  is 

2  c 


202     INSTRUCTIONS  ON  SCRIPTURAL  TOPICS 

a  revelation  of  the  essential  character  of  the  true  God 
as  He  who  wills  the  achievement  of  the  enlightenment 
and  the  freedom  of  the  world.  To  fulfil  the  imperial 
mission  of  Service  to  God  in  the  Kingdoms  of  the 
World,  the  "  Servant "  must  accept  the  yoke  of 
obedience  to  the  will  of  this  true  God,  in  the  spirit  of 
which  obedience  the  just  judgment  of  God  shall  be 
brought  by  Israel  to  the  Gentiles  (verse  i).  The  nation 
which  is  "  bruised  "  he  shall  not  "  break  "  ;  where  the 
smouldering  hope  of  life  remains,  he  shall  not  quench 
this  hope  ;  until  in  the  execution  of  a  just  judgment 
what  was  "  broken "  shall  have  been  made  whole 
again,  and  the  smouldering  hope  of  the  nations 
kindled  anew  into  a  brilliant  flame.  His  task  of 
service  shall  not  be  fulfilled  until  the  whole  earth  shall 
have  been  helped  by  his  setting  forth  of  the  prophetic 
"judgment,"  and  until  the  furthest  islands  shall  have 
accepted  his  beneficent  law  (verse  4).  The  "Servant" 
has  been  chosen  from  the  People  of  the  Covenant  in 
order  that  he  may,  in  turn,  become  the  covenant  for 
all  the  peoples  ;  that  is,  in  order  that  the  promises  of 
the  Covenant  may  be  made  to  include  the  whole  world 
without  any  reserve  (verse  6). 

The  three  noteworthy  effects  of  the  extension  of 
this  Covenant  to  the  Gentiles  are  : — 

1.  That,  thereby,  the  "Servant"  shall  establish  an 
empire  or  universal  dominion  founded  upon  universal 
justice  between  nations  and  between  men  (verses  i,  3,6). 

2.  That,  thereby,  the  "  Servant "  shall  be  elevated 
to  be  a  model,  a  standard,  a  pattern,  and  an  exemplar, 
and  hence  a  "  light "  to  the  Gentiles  (verses  6,  7).  Isaiah 
reveals  him  as  the  great  missioner  of  the  true  God. 

3.  That,   thereby,   the   "  Servant "   shall  secure  the 


THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE  SERVANT       203 

freedom  of  all  captives,  equally  those  who  have  been 
enslaved  politically,  as  those  who  have  been  enslaved 
by  error  (verse  7).  In  this  willingness  to  liberate 
politically,  no  less  than  spiritually,  is  the  note  in 
which  the  empire  of  the  people  of  the  true  God  is  to 
be  known  from  the  Babylonian  empires  of  every  age, 
whose  characteristic  note  is  that  they  enslave  men 
and  will  not  free  them. 

With  these  necessary  varying  qualifications  of  the 
word  "  Servant,"  as  one  called  but  not  hearing ;  blind 
and  unseeing  his  destiny ;  tardily  awakening  to  the 
call ;  receiving  it  in  the  person  of  representatives 
who  stand  for  the  truth  and  life  of  what  all  have  been 
called  upon  to  undertake  ;  and  thus  of  the  "  Servant " 
in  the  act  of  the  fulfilment  of  his  mission  in  a  perfect 
sense ;  the  scriptural  use  of  the  word  regains  a 
remarkable  consistency  through  which  unity  and 
intelligibility  redound  upon  whole  compositions  of 
Isaiah  xl.-lxvi.  In  the  prophecy.  Hi.  13-liii.,  where  the 
segregation  of  the  "  Servant "  from  the  nation  seems 
to  be  most  emphasised,  the  reason  is  to  be  discovered 
in  the  fact  that  experience  had  taught  that  one  who, 
like  Jeremiah,  had  responded  to  the  universal  call  of 
all  Israel  to  become  the  "  Servant  of  God,"  was 
destined  to  undergo  a  bitter  course  of  opposition,  and 
was  fated  to  suffer  martyrdom.  However  personal  this 
prophecy  is  in  its  characterisations,  the  fact  of  the 
national  representativeness  of  the  "  Servant "  is  not 
lost  sight  of  in  such  unmistakably  clear  passages 
about  the  national  future  as  that  in  which  reference 
is  made  to  the  "  Servant "  as  "  seeing  his  seed,"  and 
to  ''his  days  being  prolonged  "  (liii.  10). 

Since  this  prophecy  has  been  applied  to  Christ, 


204    INSTRUCTIONS  ON  SCRIPTURAL  TOPICS 

not  only  by  Christ  Himself  in  the  Gospels,  but  by 
the  whole  of  Christian  Tradition,  it  remains  to  suggest 
in  what  particular  manner  Christ  was  a  "  Servant "  in 
the  sense  implied  in  the  Second  Isaiah. 

In  the  first  place,  the  whole  of  the  Second  Isaiah  is 
a  "  national  "  not  a  "  messianic  "  prophecy.  Messianic 
prophecies,  in  the  original  sense  of  the  word,  are 
those  relating  to  an  "  Anointed  King."  A  "  messiah," 
the  only  "  messiah "  in  this  portion  of  the  Book  of 
Isaiah,  is  Cyrus,  who  is  called  "  my  anointed  Cyrus," 
or  literally,  "  my  messiah  Cyrus."  Therefore  these 
are  in  no  sense  prophecies  which  predict  the  advent 
of  a  king  of  the  House  of  David  in  whose  life  the 
prediction  is  fulfilled  and  thereby  terminated. 

In  the  second  place,  though  these  chapters  of  Isaiah 
are  a  national  prophecy,  they  are  such  of  the  Nation 
only  in  a  transcendent  sense.  Beyond  Israel,  beyond 
humanity,  we  reach  to  the  conception  of  the  embodied 
Spirit  of  God  in  Israel,  in  mankind  ;  an  embodiment 
which  transcends  any  partial  and  imperfect  historical 
realisation  of  this  divine  ideal.  We  are  brought 
before  a  living  picture  of  the  social,  the  world-serving, 
the  world-enlightening,  the  world-freeing  embodi- 
ment of  the  religion  of  the  true  God,  in  all  places  and 
in  all  times.  Applied,  therefore,  to  Jesus  Christ,  the 
general  characteristics  of  the  "  Servant "  belong  to 
Him,  not  as  of  the  details  of  individual  biography, 
but  as  of  His  representative  biography.  The 
prophecy  is  of  the  Christ-like  spirit  of  Christ,  in  so 
far  as  all  Humanity  may  become  like  to  Christ ;  of 
Christ  as  the  representative  Israelite ;  and,  beyond 
Christ  Himself,  of  every  one  who  has  become  a 
true  Israelite  in  the  right  of  succession  in  spiritual 


THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE  SERVANT       205 

heredity  from  Israel.  In  this  sense  the  prophecies  of 
the  "  Servant "  anticipate  the  religious  spirit  of  men 
of  God  like  Francis  of  Assisi,  and  also  the  modern 
practical  conception  of  Christian  religion  as  service 
for  God  to  men. 

But  as  individuals  who  are  so  minded  are  only  the 
harbingers  of  a  Christian  Civilisation  which  the 
whole  people  of  God  are  called  upon  to  assume,  the 
prophecies  of  the  "  Servant  "  forebode  ultimately  the 
advent  of  a  great  Christian  people,  of  a  great  nation 
or  federation  of  nations,  who,  having  once  and  for 
all  renounced  the  principles  of  warlike  aggression  and 
arrogance  in  dealing  with  others,  shall  have  earned 
their  title  to  empire  and  dominion  and  leadership  amid 
the  rest  of  the  nations  by  their  practical  exemplifica- 
tions of  the  spirit  of  Service  of  God  to  the  nations, 
through  establishing  justice  in  international  dealings, 
through  spreading  light  in  their  exemplification  of 
liberality,  and  by  setting  free  the  peoples  who  are 
deprived  of  their  due  liberty  in  every  part  of  the 
Christian  and  Heathen  World. 

These  prophecies  are,  in  fine,  the  prediction  of  an 
era  in  which,  for  the  first  time  in  history,  a  Christian 
Nation  —  not  only  a  few  elect  souls  —  shall  have 
become  a  true  Disciple,  in  a  corporate  sense  of  the 
word,  of  the  Master  Christ,  in  the  pre-eminence  of  its 
service  to  others,  in  acting  justly  towards  weak 
nations,  in  the  education  of  the  heathen,  and  in 
bringing  freedom  to  the  farthest  parts  of  the 
world. 

Therefore  Christ  stands  here  as  the  representative 
of  the  Nation  ;  as  the  Soul  of  Israel ;  as  the  perfect 
Israelite ;  as  the  exemplification  of  that  spirit  which 


206    INSTRUCTIONS  ON  SCRIPTURAL  TOPICS 

should  have  characterised  the  whole  Nation,  in  that  it 
had  been  called  to  be  the  Servant  of  the  Lord. 

These  prophecies  of  Isaiah  are  therefore  not  so 
much  about  the  individual  Christ,  as  about  the 
Christ-like  spirit  itself,  and  the  Christ-like  spirit 
exemplified  in  the  great  company  of  all  who  are 
in  genuine  fellowship  with  Christ.  Since  the  national 
or  corporate  meaning  of  the  word  "  Servant "  is  never 
here  lost  sight  of,  these  prophecies  forebode  an 
eventual  Civilisation  in  which  some  nation,  as  a 
whole,  shall  have  taken  this  lead  in  exemplifying 
service  to  the  world  in  the  characteristic  way  enun- 
ciated by  the  prophet.  This  service  is  the  creation 
of  humane  relations  between  the  peoples ;  it  is  the 
refusal  to  oppress  the  weak ;  it  is  the  light  to  the 
heathen,  of  an  exemplary  national  conduct,  and  of 
missionary  and  educational  effort ;  it  is  the  apostolate 
of  brotherly  love  sent  to  all  countries,  and  even  to 
the  isles  and  to  the  ends  of  the  earth. 

In  his  vision  of  the  philosophy  of  history,  the 
prophet  foresaw  that,  until  the  whole  earth  were 
converted  by  the  preaching  of  the  Servant,  there 
would  evermore  be  Babylons  in  the  world,  because 
Babylonian  arrogance  and  presumption  had  first 
reigned  within  the  human  heart.  History  would 
repeat  itself,  because  the  heart  of  the  Oppressor  would 
again  create  the  oppressive  rule,  because  the  heart  of 
the  Friend  of  God,  who  had  been  called  the  Servant  of 
God,  would  again  be  set  in  opposition  to  all  the 
Oppressor's  ways.  But  when  at  length  a  new  people 
of  God,  a  Spiritual  Israel  of  the  Future,  should  have 
entered  into  fellowship  in  the  spirit  of  the  Servant 
represented  in  the  meekness  and  humanity  of  Christ, 


THE  EMPIRE  OF  THE  SERVANT       207 

the  day  of  the  long-delayed  victory  of  the  true  God 
would  have  dawned  on  the  world.  God  said  to  this 
prophet :  "  I  will  create  a  New  Heaven  and  a  New 
Earth."  "  Heaven "  to  the  Hebrews  meant  the 
prospects  of  life  in  social  blessedness  substantially 
stored  for  them  in  the  future,  the  outlook  which  cheered 
the  life  of  the  present.  The  "  Earth  "  meant  happi- 
ness, knowledge,  freedom  brought  from  the  heavenly 
storing-place  into  the  present  time.  The  Christian 
nation  of  the  future  which  shall  have  learned  to  base 
its  Home  and  Foreign  policy  upon  this  conception 
of  the  pre-eminence  of  service  among  the  other 
nations,  shall  have  become  the  "  Servant "  through 
whose  instrumentality  the  power  of  God  will  have 
created  this  New  Heaven  and  New  Earth. 


PKINTED  BY 
OLIVKR  AND  BOYD 

EDINBURGH 


1    1012  01007  0268 


If;-,  x^i^^^ 


